The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has come up with a cost-effective solution for isolation wards with the manufacture of two-bed tents with medical equipment for screening, isolation and quarantine. These special tents can be used for medical emergency, medical screening, hospital triage and quarantine purposes. These tents with floor area of 9.55 square metres are made up of waterproof fabric, mild steel and aluminium alloy.
These tents can be set up in any place & terrain and help in creating additional facilities other than those in conventional hospitals within a short period of time. Ordnance Equipment Factory, Kanpur has manufactured these tents. Fifty such tents have been sent to Government of Arunachal Pradesh.
Moreover, Opto Electronics Factory, Dehradun, a unit of Ordnance Factory Board, has donated 2,500 bottles (100 ml each) of hand sanitisers and 1,000 face masks to the Governor, Uttarakhand, on April 6, 2020. Cordite Factory Aruvankadu, another unit of OFB, handed over 100 litres of sanitisers to the Nilgiris District Police authorities in Tamil Nadu on April 08 while High Explosives Factory (HEF) in Pune despatched the first batch of 2,500 litres sanitisers to M/s HLL, Belgavi on April 9.
Also, Ordnance Factory Ambajhari (OFAJ) Nagpur has developed fumigation chamber for the purpose of sanitisation. It is fully portable and can be shifted with ease. It is installed at the main entrance of OFAJ Hospital. Ordnance Factory Dehradun handed over indigenously made pedal-operated handwashing system fitted with soap dispenser to the police authorities on April 7. Ordnance Factory Dehu Road, Pune distributed food kits amongst labourers at Dehugaon village on April 6.
Two units of OFB namely the Small Arms Factory (SAF) Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and the Heavy Vehicle Factory (HVF) Avadi in Tamil Nadu (TN) have been granted accreditation by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) for conducting the ‘Test for Blood Penetration Resistance’ as the test equipment manufactured by them met the ASTM F 1670:2003 and ISO 16603:2004 standards.
The equipment was developed by a number of Ordnance Factories in a competitive mission mode in a record time of a fortnight.
The basic principle of the test is to expose the fabric, used as a raw material to manufacture coveralls to ‘synthetic blood’ at different pressure levels for specified periods of time. The test is essentially required to facilitate bulk manufacture of coveralls by manufacturers all over the country in large numbers for health workers and first responders dealing with patients afflicted with the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Hitherto, this test was available only with South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), Coimbatore in the entire country and testing of the fabric for manufacture of coveralls had emerged as a critical bottleneck especially during the nationwide lockdown and in the absence of logistics.
With the latest development, another test facility has been created in South India and the first such facility has been established in north India. This will not only enable the OFB to ramp up production of coveralls in the clothing factories, four of which are in UP and one in TN, but will also enable other agencies engaged in the manufacture of coveralls to avail this crucial testing facility