L&T is planning to build and deploy 22 Medical Grade Oxygen units to various hospitals across the country on plug & play principle. 

At a time when India is reeling under a shortage of oxygen, L&T has immediately started working towards a long-term solution to meet the medical-grade oxygen demand in the country. These units will absorb air from the atmosphere before converting it into medical-grade oxygen and pumping it into pre-existing pipes in the hospitals.

Of these, the parts of the first tranche of nine equipment will reach India by 9 May. These will be progressively delivered from 15th May to hospitals that are in acute need and do not possess required infrastructure to receive bulk oxygen supply.

L&T CEO & MD, S. N. Subrahmanyan said, “This is an unprecedented situation, and we are extremely pained by the consequences of the dire shortage of oxygen. Nothing could be more important than human life and L&T is committed to stand by the nation. Our teams in India and abroad have with single-minded attention in the last few days been able to procure the oxygen generators and other components to assemble PSA units.Together we shall all overcome the Covid-19 scourge."

L&T is sourcing the components from various parts of the world. Once assembled at L&T's Hazira Manufacturing Complex, each of the parts will be compact, stand-alone oxygen-making units. After testing, they will be dispatched to various hospitals where they will immediately start producing medical-grade oxygen as per the requirements. Each unit has a compressor, dryer, oxygen generator and two storage tanks that could cater to hospitals or medical facilities with over 1,750 beds.

The units work on the plug-and-play principle. Once all the constituent parts are fabricated, the compressor allows the air to reach a particular pressure within a few minutes. The generator then starts pumping oxygen into pipes.

Each of the units has a capacity range from 1,000 litres per minute (LPM) to 500 LPM. A 1,000 LPM machine cloud service 100-plus beds simultaneously. The 500 LPM machine can potentially service 50-plus beds at any point of time.