Stellar role by Kerala MVD in transporting oxygen

Working round the clock officials of the Department have transported 200 tones of LMO daily in the last 16 days

May 29, 2021 11:23 am | Updated 11:23 am IST - KOCHI

Ever since the vicious second wave of the pandemic erupted in the State threatening the spectre of oxygen shortage, the Kerala Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) had just a single job; the seamless movement of the Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO).

Going by the statistics, the Department has done an admirable job with its officials often working round the clock. On an average, the Department has transported 200 tones of LMO daily having moved 1,100 tones to government hospitals and helped refill 1.10 lakh oxygen cylinders in the last 16 days alone.

The Department led by the Transport secretary K. R. Jyothilal has performed a pivotal role in the operation of Oxygen War Room at the State and district-levels by facilitating smooth movement of LMO. Initially, MVD helped commandeer 32 cryogenic oxygen tankers and 138 carriers for the movement of oxygen cylinders.

“We fitted all these vehicles with GPS-enabled trackers and tagged it with our already existing app Suraksha Mitr, a tracking solution developed by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advance Computing). This helped tracking the movement of LMO in real time and helped the Oxygen War Rooms in allocating oxygen accurately,” said Pramod Shankar, Additional Transport Commissioner entrusted with coordinating the transportation of LMO.

The Department then developed a trend analysis to calculate and reduce the idling time of the oxygen carriers and also provided escort to oxygen tankers to reduce that idling time.

LMO was transported mainly from two production units within the State and other States based on the allocation by the Central government in addition to LMO landing at ports and railway stations by way of oxygen express trains.

“We then created an app for our officials alone to help estimate the exact volume of oxygen being transported at any given point. That data was entered in the app at 19 check points across the State and at the time of filling LMO into tankers at the production units,” said Mr. Shankar.

MVD officials also lent technical support in converting Liquified Natural Gas tankers into LMO carriers.

“We even made couplings and other equipment needed for the conversion of those tankers. The tankers sent to other States for transporting LMO had our officers aboard them,” said B. Shefiq, a Joint Regional Transport Officer coordinating the LMO movement in Ernakulam.

Many MVD officers are now in quarantine after such cross-border trips. For instance, drivers of two tankers that brought LMO from West Bengal to Kochi last week were tested positive for SARS-COV-2 sending the accompanying officials into quarantine.

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