With the objective to add muscle to the ongoing fight against the corona pandemic, the armed forces have mobilised more than 600 retired doctors besides deploying 300 National Cadet Corps (NCC) cadets to assist the local administration in various parts of the country. Also, the army has provided 720 beds for civilians suffering from corona.
Moreover, seven naval ships are currently ferrying the much-needed oxygen from various parts of the world. The IAF on Saturday brought cryogenic containers from Singapore and off leaded them at the Panagarh airbase in West Bengal.
The IAF has carried out more than 160 sorties in the last two to three days rushing medical equipment to various parts of the country apart from airlifting oxygen cylinders from countries including Singapore, United Arab Emirates(UAE)and Thailand.
All these measures were reviewed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh here on Saturday along with the three Services chiefs and Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat in a virtual meeting, defence ministry officials said.
Mobilisation of additional health professionals, logistic support to facilitate supply of oxygen and setting up new oxygen plants are top priorities, the defence minister said in the meeting.
Giving details of the high-level meeting, they said Rajnath was apprised that approximately 600 additional doctors are mobilised through special measures such as calling to duty those who had retired in the last few years.
The Indian Navy has deployed 200 Battle Field Nursing Assistants to assist in various hospitals. The NCC has deployed 300 cadets and staff at various locations in Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Haryana. Moreover, a tele medicine service, to be operated by health veterans, will begin soon to provide consultation to those patients who remain at home.
Also, the Army has made available more than 720 beds for civilians in various states. The minister directed the Army to share the details with local administration at the state and district levels. Rawat suggested that local military commands have to be actively engaged in assisting the civil administration.
Rajnath was briefed that the 500-bed hospital being set up the Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) in Lucknow will start functioning in the next two to three days. Another hospital is also being set up in Varanasi which is scheduled to be completed by May five, DRDO chief S Reddy informed the minister. Also, the first four out of 380 Oxygen PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) plants being manufactured under PM CARES fund will be deployed in hospitals in New Delhi by next week, he said.
The minister appreciated the logistics support being provided by the Armed Forces in transporting oxygen containers from abroad as well as within the country between places of consumption and production.
While transport aircraft of the IAF carried out several sorties from Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai and within the country, Indian Navy dispatched four ships – two to Middle east and two to South East Asia – to transport filled oxygen containers to India.Part of Operation ‘Samudra Setu II,’ overall seven ships including Kolkata, Kochi, Talwar, Tabar, Trikand, Jalashwa and Airavat are deployed for shipment of liquid medical oxygen-filled cryogenic containers from various countries.
Kolkata and Talwar were mission deployed in the Persian Gulf and were the first batch of ships that were immediately diverted for ferrying oxygen. They entered port of Manama, Bahrain on Friday and Talwar with 40 MT Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) is headed back home.
INS Kolkata has proceeded to Doha, Qatar for embarking medical supplies and will subsequently head to Kuwait for embarking Liquid Oxygen tanks.
Similarly, on the Eastern seaboard, Airavat too has been diverted for the task, while Jalashwa was pulled out of maintenance and sailed out to augment the effort. Airavat is scheduled to enter Singapore for embarking Liquid oxygen tanks and Jalashwa is standing by in the region to
embark medical stores at short notice.
The second batch of ships comprising Kochi, Trikand and Tabar mission deployed in Arabian sea have also been diverted to join the national effort. From the Southern Naval Command, the Landing Ship Tank Shardul is being readied to join the Operation within 48 hours.
As regards the air effort, as on Saturday, carried out 28 sorties from abroad, airlifting 47 oxygen containers with 830 MT of capacity, while from within the country, it carried out 158 sorties, airlifting 109 containers with 2,271 MT capacity.
The Navy and the Air Force have also supplied nearly 500 portable oxygen cylinders from their stores to various civilian hospitals.