Sewa International will be funding the installation of 100 oxygen generation plants in hospitals across India to ease oxygen scarcity in the country. It has ordered 20-tonn Zeolites (molecular sieves that absorb nitrogen and produce oxygen as a product) from Honeywell to establish up to 30 plants immediately. As a part of these efforts, it has placed purchase orders for 15 oxygen generation plants to be set up in the next 8-12 weeks at about $1.8 million. Sewa International has started a fundraising campaign to construct these oxygen plants to help distribute oxygen generation capability across India.
Arun Kankani, President, Sewa International, said: “Based on our reading of the current situation, we have made a strategic decision to start building oxygen generating plants in India to enhance India’s capacity to face the present COVID-19 crisis. This will make India future-ready to face a possible third wave of the pandemic.”
Sewa has identified three vendors from India to supply the machinery required to build these plants. The first fifteen plants will be a mix of 250 LPM and 500 LPM capacity, and each can support about 20 – 40 ICU beds. Sewa International is working with 40 – 50 hospitals across India to establish these plants, and the number of hospitals is expected to grow to more than one hundred depending on donor support.
Mukund Kute, Project Manager for oxygen generation plant initiative, Sewa, said: “The primary target for installing these oxygen generation plants are charitable hospitals in rural and tribal areas and hospitals in 2nd and 3rd tier cities. The plants, with good care and maintenance, have a life of twenty years. One 500 LPM plant can support a 200-bed hospital with 40 ICU beds or can produce 110 cylinders of oxygen a day. Including site preparation expenses and taxes, one such plant will cost about $121,000.”
