Rajnath Singh asks Armed Forces to extend help to state govts in dealing with COVID-19
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New Delhi, April 21: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has urged Armed Forces to be in close contact with the state governments and be ready to provide any required assistance in the battle against COVID-19. He has also directed the Armed Forces and other stakeholders to go ahead with the procurement of critical medical requirements under emergency powers of procurement.
This comes as Singh held a virtual meeting to review the preparedness of the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces to deal with the recent spike in COVID-19 cases across the country. He has asked the DPSUs, OFB and DRDO to work on war footing to provide oxygen cylinders and extra beds to civil administration/state governments at the earliest.
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Defence secretary Ajay Kumar was also part of the discussions on Monday evening in which the decision was taken. Hospitals run by the Cantonment Boards across the country will be thrown open to civilians living in the areas and also coming from outside the Cantonment zones.
A COVID-19 facility, developed by DRDO, has again been made functional in New Delhi and efforts are being made to soon increase the number of beds from 250 to 500. DRDO Dr Sathish Reddy informed the meeting that the ESIC Hospital, which was converted to COVID hospital in Patna, has started functioning with 500 beds and a COVID hospital will soon be made functional at Muzaffarpur in Bihar. He also informed that work is on war footing to set up a 450-bed hospital in Lucknow, 750-bed hospital in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh and 900-bed hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
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The On-Board Oxygen Generation Technology developed for LCA Tejas, a 1000 litre/minute capacity oxygen generation plants technology has been given to the industry and the Uttar Pradesh government has placed order of five such plants with the industry.
As earlier reported, DRDO has developed a SpO2-based supplemental oxygen delivery system for soldiers serving in extremely high altitude areas and COVID-19 patients.