Chennai, May 13 (IANS): The Sterlite plant at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu has dispatched its first load of oxygen to nearby Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital on Thursday. The vehicle carrying 4.82 KL of oxygen was flagged off by Tuticorin district collector, Dr K. Senthil Raj from the Sterlite premises.

The district collector who is the monitoring committee chairman appointed by the state government on the directive of the Supreme court said that the quality check of the 4.82 KL of oxygen was done in the quality control laboratory within the Sterlite premises.

The collector said that the liquid oxygen was moved to Tirunelveli Medical College hospital under the supervision of the officials of the Tamil Nadu Medical Service Corporation (TNMSC). The district collector also said that TNMSC will allot the subsequent consignments by the evening of Thursday.

Sterilite corporation Chief Executive Officer, Pankaj Kumar in a statement said, "My team and myself are honoured that our facility and efforts are being directly put into helping save lives. We promise to make every possible effort to ensure that there is continuous production of oxygen from our plant."

Thoothukudi Contractors association president, S. Thiagarajan while speaking to IANS said, "It is a really happy moment and around 200 contract workers are engaged in the work along with the staff of the plant and our efforts are fructified as we could provide oxygen to the needy and to government Medical college, Tirunelveli from this plant."