Tata Advanced Systems and Trident Pneumatics will be setting up a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit under a Union government tender that the companies bagged.
The oxygen units will be set up at just Rs 75 lakh and some amount in taxes for the same. While the order for 450 PSAs has gone to the Tata Group firm, the remaining 50 will be put up by Trident Pneumatics.
The government has ordered a total of 500 PSAs or on-site oxygen generator units and the remaining 51 will be awarded in the next few days. These units will, however, take at least three months to be built.
The Union Ministry of Health had floated a similar tender for PSAs in October 2020 for 150 district hospitals, but most of these units were not set up. Taking the three-month timeline for the current tender as the benchmark, these PSAs could have come up by now had the award of tenders been done in November 2020. This tender was issued on 21 October 2020 and bids were opened on 11 November 2020.
PSA plants derive oxygen from the atmospheric air, which is purified and supplied through pipes to patients. Such oxygen is required to have 99.5 percent purity.
While these units will be set up within hospital premises and help tide over transportation bottlenecks; concentrators that can be installed at home work on a similar principle. Concentrators, however, cannot be used to treat all patients and oxygen support is required depending on the severity of condition.