For lack of oxygen, items making oxygen cylinders shut down

IT looks as if a case of the appropriate hand not realizing what the left is doing. The ban on industrial oxygen has had a big fallout: over the previous 10 days, manufacturing has come to a halt within the nation’s largest oxygen cylinder manufacturing items, largely in Gandhidham, Gujarat.
Reason: these cylinder-manufacturing items had been included within the ban on use of commercial oxygen and regardless of a Ministry of Home Affairs “clarification” on April 27 that liquid oxygen must be provided to oxygen-cylinder producers, the ban is but to be lifted.
Representatives of the All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers Association (AIIGMA) stated that the clutch of huge items situated within the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Gandhidham, Kutch, account for over two-thirds of the nation’s oxygen cylinder manufacturing, and the persevering with ban was solely making the oxygen cylinder scarcity extra acute.

Speaking to The Indian Express, AIIGMA president Saket Tiku stated: “During the second wave of the Covid crisis, the demand of oxygen in the state of Gujarat has shot up between 1,200-1,500 metric tonnes (MT) a day. And the collective requirement of the cylinder plants in the state is minuscule in comparison. It is just 11 MT a day. This has been red-flagged at the highest level in Government but critical plants still remain shut.”

ExplainedBan lifted however solely on paperHome Ministry clarified April 27 that liquid oxygen must be provided to oxygen-cylinder producers. But the federal government in Gujarat, the place the manufacturing hub is, has not but applied it. Units stated it’s a “desperate” scenario.

The producers are a harried lot, saying they’re getting “hundreds of requests” for oxygen cylinders every day. Their current orders from the Central Government, state governments and from hospitals nationwide are caught.
According to Sarang Gandhe, the Marketing Manager of Everest Kanto Cylinder Ltd, the biggest cylinder producer within the SEZ, the scenario is “desperate.”

“We have a production capacity of around 35,000 cylinders a month but are being forced to cancel orders,” he stated. “There are states like Orissa, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh that depend on us for cylinders but our plant is shuttered. The Government is now importing oxygen cylinders at three or four times our rates.”
Family members of COVID-19 sufferers wait to fill their empty cylinders with medical oxygen exterior an oxygen filling centre, at Bhogal, in New Delhi. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)
According to him, whereas the MHA issued directions for exempting cylinder producers from the ban, state authorities, together with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), weren’t executing these orders.
When contacted, Manoj Das, Additional Chief Secretary to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani stated: “Our first priority is to give available oxygen to (Covid) patients; especially, those needing oxygen support…We are just barely managing somehow. As soon as we get additional allocation, we would definitely like to help them. We are working with them.”

The homeowners of one other massive cylinder plant, Rama Cylinders Private Limited, stated they’ve a manufacturing capability of fifty,000 oxygen cylinders a month and a “technical delay” has tied their fingers throughout an emergency. Said Managing Director Vashu Ramsinghani: “We have large volume orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Union Health Ministry and from hospitals all over the country. We have made representations to the Chief Minister’s Office and the situation is one of panic. ”
His son, Amit Ramsinghani, Executive Director, stated: “All we need is 3 MT of oxygen a day to run two cylinder plants. Hundreds of emails and frantic calls are coming but our plants are shut.” —(with ENS, Ahmedabad)