Love and fresh air

For the past two months, there have been reports and visuals of severe oxygen shortage. Children’s hospitals tweeted SOS messages saying they had only hours worth of supplies in Delhi, 24 people died in Karnataka’s Chamarajanagar allegedly because of the shortage, and a man was accused of spreading panic and even charged for seeking help for his ill grandfather in Uttar Pradesh. PATH, which tracks daily oxygen needs of different countries, says that India needs over 17 million cubic metres or 6 million tonne (MT) of oxygen per day as of May 13. But the country produces 7,500 metric tonnes of oxygen per day, as on April 21, 2021. There is a massive demand and supply gap. To bridge it, a war effort is needed and Indian Navy has stepped in with its Operation Samudra Setu II. Nine naval ships — INS Talwar, INS Kolkata, INS Kochi, INS Trikand, INS Tabar, INS Airavat, INS Jalashwa, INS Tarkash and INS Shardul — have been deployed for shipment of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) filled cryogenic containers and other emergency medical supplies from various countries. Help has come in from Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore and France so far.  

Beginning as a trickle, this support has gained momentum and heft over the days. In the first batch of ships deployed were INS Kolkata and INS Talwar, which headed to the Persian Gulf. While INS Talwar returned first, arriving at the New Mangalore Port on May 5, it carried just 54 tonne of LMO from Bahrain. INS Kolkata, which arrived five days after, carried a much bigger load of two 27 MT containers of LMO and 47 concentrators from Qatar and Kuwait. INS Kochi and INS Tabar, which arrived a day later, brought an even bigger consignment cumulatively — of 100 MT LMO in five containers — and 1,200 oxygen cylinders from Kuwait. On the eastern coat, INS Airavat was too diverted to Singapore from where it brought in on May 10 probably the largest consignment by a single platform with eight empty 20 tonne cryogenic oxygen tanks, around 4,000 oxygen cylinders (3,150 empty and 500 filled), seven oxygen concentrators, 10,000 rapid antigen test kits and 450 PPE kits, to Visakhapatnam.

The Indian Navy have been quoted saying that over 600 MT of LMO would be shipped to India over the next two months as a part of the French mission 'Oxygen Solidarity Bridge' and that they are also equipped to carry more Samudra Setu II operations in support of the country’s fight against the pandemic.