By Mohammed Shafeeq
Hyderabad, May 24 (IANS): Sahayata Trust, a Hyderabad-based NGO, plans to set up four medical oxygen generation plants to cater to the requirements of hospitals treating Covid patients.
Each plant will have a capacity of 4,500 litres per day and will come up at a cost of Rs 1 crore each. Two plants will come up in Hyderabad and one in Gujarat. The NGO is yet to decide on the location for the fourth plant.
"The first plant is expected to be up and running in Hyderabad next month," Prof Amirullah Khan, coordinator of Sahayata Trust, told IANS on Monday.
The development economist said the NGO would be importing the plants. He said these plants would meet the requirements of various hospitals treating Covid or other critically ill patients.
He pointed out that the NGO is also receiving 400 high quality oxygen concentrators from different charities in the United Kingdom and the United States. He described it as the world's largest donation of oxygen concentrators.
The first consignment comprising 170 devices arrived in Hyderabad from the UK by a special flight of Qatar Airways on Friday. The second consignment of 270 concentrators is scheduled to arrive next week.
Sahayata Trust has started distributing concentrators to different healthcare organizations in Telangana and other states. "The relief effort will add oxygen to the efforts of NGOs scrambling to procure oxygen to save as many lives as they can," said Sahayata Trust CEO Syed Aneesuddin.
The devices will be allocated on a per-need basis to different NGOs across Hyderabad, Lucknow, Allahabad, Delhi, Ranchi, Bhopal and other cities. The organization included Access Foundation, Safa Baitul Maal and SDIF.
Different NGOS across international borders have joined hands for the noble cause at a time when several lives are being lost across India due to shortage of oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators during the second wave of Covid-19.
Donation of concentrators is a meticulously coordinated relief effort by UK-based charities managed by the Indian diaspora including Maahir Charity, Deccan Medical College Alumni Association, and Medical Aid in coordination with the US-based Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC), the parent body of Sahayata Trust.
Syed Aneesuddin thanked Hyderabad Member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi who played an important role in helping the consignment reach India within a short span of time.
"These are high quality oxygen concentrators with dual outflow of oxygen enabling two patients to use the same machine at a time. We are training people to use the device using the device manuals received from England. This is a daunting task to coordinate the allocation as well as train and equip the personnel to handle the device in a very short time, especially since every passing minute increases danger of loss of life for people struggling to find oxygen support," said Amirullah Khan.
India needs about one lakh oxygen concentrators. "The government has been able to import only 1000 from the USA, which means there is a deficit of 99%. In such savaging times, the import of 400 units is a small but significant effort in saving more lives", said former civil servant Prof Amirullah Khan.
He thanked the state and central governments for waiving the import duty on the equipment. He also thanked Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar for taking up the matter on an urgent basis and Commissioner Commercial Taxes Neetu Prasad who went out of the way working late at night to grant 'real-time approval'. Due to her personal interest in expediting the process, the consignment was ready for pickup within three hours after arrival.