Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren assured companies running oxygen plants and refilling stations in the state that his government would provide all kinds of assistance and fast track clearances required to upgrade their systems to cope with the rising demand for oxygen.

During a visit to two plants on the outskirts of Ranchi on Sunday, Hemant appealed to their proprietors that theyshould be ready to meet hospital requirements round-the-clock in view of the spiralling Covid-19 cases.

According to health department officials, Jharkhand has five oxygen produing plants and about 14 refilling plants. “But as far as cylinders are concerned, we barely have 10,000-12,000, which according to the current situation is inadequate," admitted an official.

He said earlier in Ranchi, a big hospital would require 10-12 cylinders of oxygen. But now that had shot up to 80-100. "We have to be ready on a war footing. Last week, the state government granted licences to four new plants. Of these, one in Hazaribagh is functioning already,” he added.

On Sunday afternoon, Hemant visited two oxygen refilling units at Ormanjhi and Vikas in Newri as a part of the government's efforts to ramp up the health infrastructure in the face of a public backlash over inadequate medical facilities amid a raging pandemic.

At Ormanjhi, Hemant visited Chottanagpur Industrial Gas Plant, while in Vikas, he went to S.K. Industrial Gas Plant. Accompanied by officials,

he spent hours there looking at every installation in detail to assess existing capacities of the plants.

Speaking to the media at Ormanjhi, Hemant said that although Jharkhand wasn’t fearing a crisis of oxygen as in other parts in the country, he wanted the state government to take corrective steps in advance.

“I have been saying all along that there is no problem about oxygen production in the state. It is in abundance here. But there are certain shortcomings on the logistics side, like cylinders, refilling units, etc,” Hemant said, adding that the government was asking existing oxygen plants to increase capacity on priority on the asurance that all clealrances would be fast tracked.

On the Ormanjhi plant, Hemant said, “They told us that they could refill 30 jumbo cylinders in an hour. They are in the process of expanding their capacity soon.” The plant at Vikas is able to fill close to 1000 cylinders per day.