India's largest private-sector steelmaker JSW Steel on Tuesday said it would increase production of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) to 1,000 tonnes per day from the present capacity of 900 tonnes per day by lowering the production of steel at its steel plants.
"Saving lives is more important than producing steel and production can suffer for as long as the country is in need of any resource available with the company," Sajjan Jindal, Chairman & MD, JSW Group said in a statement.
Large Covid centres are being built on an emergency basis around its plants where JSW is laying a dedicated pipeline to supply gaseous oxygen directly to the patients. This will avoid the dependency on liquid oxygen. "If the oxygen in such huge quantities cannot be taken to the patients, then we must bring the patients closest to the oxygen source," Jindal said.
JSW is already supplying the maximum possible liquid oxygen from its plants and is one of the biggest suppliers of medical oxygen in the country.
The company is expected to supply 20,000 tonnes of oxygen during April. "We are leaving no stone unturned to push the supply of liquid oxygen in the interest of our nation," Jindal added.
JSW Steel produces 600 tonnes of oxygen from its steel plants in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu every day and supplies to southern states.
The company has a capacity to produce 23 million tonnes of steel per annum across all its plants. This includes a 12 million tonne per annum steel plant in the Ballari district of Karnataka.
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