Coinciding with his two decades in a public office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday will inaugurate 35 oxygen generation plants resulting in establishment of at least one such plant in every district in India.
“The Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation 35 Pressure Swing Adsorption oxygen plants established under PM-CARES, across 35 States and Union Territories. With this, all districts of the country will have commissioned PSA oxygen plants,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a note. The event will take place at AIIMS, Rishikesh.
As of now, 1,224 such plants have been funded under the PM-CARES fund, out of which more than 1,100 plants have been commissioned, providing an output of over 1,750 MT oxygen.
Though the event is a government function, it happens at a time when the ruling BJP is celebrating two decades of Modi in public life in a big way.
Incidentally, the Centre has disclosed very little on the PM-CARES fund in court affidavits and RTI responses. Recently, it told the Delhi High Court that the fund could neither be brought under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI) Act as a “public authority” nor could it be listed as a “State”, even though the PMO controls the corpus.
Last month, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said 3,631 PSA plants were being set up to generate nearly 4,600 metric tonnes of oxygen per day. As of now around 40 per cent of such plants – 1,595 plants to be exact – have been commissioned to produce 2,100 MT of oxygen, out of which 1,491 were created with the central money.
Since the ferocious peak of the Covid-19 in May when people died due to lack of oxygen, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the administrative agencies to establish more oxygen generation units to take care of any future crisis.
Watch the latest DH Videos here: