State Congress president Rameshwar Oraon on Saturday launched an oxygen bank at party headquarters in Ranchi which will function round the clock and free of cost to help those in need and are battling Covid-19 infection.

Oraon said that the idea of setting up the oxygen bank came from his party’s youth wing to which they readily agreed.

“The youth wing of the state unit has played a pivotal role in conceptualising and setting up of the oxygen bank. Every party worker will ensure that it runs efficiently to help all those who are in need of it. The oxygen bank will function round the clock and services will be free of cost,” he said.

Oraon who is also state’s finance minister added that since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Congress party, which is part of the ruling coalition government led by Hemant Soren, ran numerous public-centric programmes.

“During the nationwide lockdown last year, the party through all its district units ran community kitchens, distributed free meals, dry ration to several under privileged and also facilitated different sorts of help including transport to scores of migrant workers,” he claimed, adding that since the outbreak of the second wave in last week of March this year, the party had set up state and district level control room to coordinate help to people.

“Through our state control room, we were also running online medical consultancy services to assist people who are in home isolation. Today’s initiative is another addition to our work towards people of this state,” said Oraon.

Kumar Gaurav, state president of the youth wing of Congress said that they have sourced sufficient stocks of oxygen cylinders and concentrators for the bank which will be sanctioned free of cost to people approaching them. Even though they have provided the exact number of available cylinders and concentrators, officials said that they will ensure that anyone contacting them isn't let down.

“Through this bank, we intend to provide free service of oxygen cylinders, masks, sanitisers, concentrators and the likes to all those who approach us. We have sufficient stocks ready and more will be added up in case of crisis,” he said.