Bengaluru: At a time when India is gasping for oxygen, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has rallied its resources to become India’s largest producer of medical-grade liquid oxygen. It now produces over 11 per cent of India’s total production of medical oxygen, meeting the needs of nearly every 1 in 10 patients, a company release said.

To meet the demands, the organisation has diverted its resources to quickly ramp up the production of medicinal oxygen from 0 to 1000 MT per day free of charge. According to RIL, it is catering to the needs of over 1 lakh people every day on an average with its production capacity of 1000 MT daily, as per reports published by OpIndia. 

It might be noted that Reliance had started to send oxygen to Maharashtra free of cost from its Gujarat refinery. Maharashtra was then facing an acute shortage of oxygen because of the rising number of COVID-19 cases. The company was diverting some oxygen meant for its petroleum coke gasification units after making it suitable for medical use.

At first, the company had started with 100 MT oxygen per day which was sent to Maharashtra. After a week it was increased to 700 MT per day, which was also sent to other states like Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. And now that capacity of medical oxygen production has been increased to 1000 MT per day.