New Delhi: Continuing its efforts round the clock to provide critical Covid related supplies to the civil administration across the country, the Ministry of Defence on Wednesday informed that so far, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has airlifted 403 oxygen containers of 6,856 Metric Tonnes (MT) capacity along with other equipment of 163 MT capacity, taking a total of 634 sorties from different parts of the country.
The cities covered are Jamnagar, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Panagarh, Indore, Ranchi, Agra, Jodhpur, Begumpet, Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Surat, Raipur, Udaipur, Mumbai, Lucknow, Nagpur, Gwalior, Vijayawada, Baroda, Dimapur and Hindan, the officials in the Ministry said.
The IAF aircraft have also conducted 98 sorties from different countries, airlifting 95 containers of 793 MT capacity and other equipment of 204 MT capacity. The equipment has been procured from Singapore, Dubai, Thailand, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Indonesia, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Israel and France, they added.
Similarly, under the operation ‘Samudra Setu II’, seven Indian Naval Ships have returned home with 260 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) from 13 containers for direct supply to various states, eight oxygen containers of total capacity 160 MT, around 2,600 oxygen filled cylinders and 3,150 empty cylinders for Oxygen from Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia.
“INS Jalashwa is presently in Brunei, INS Shardul is scheduled to enter Kuwait on May 12, 2021 while INS Tarkash has already arrived at Mumbai port with two Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) cryogenic containers of 20 MT each and 230 Oxygen cylinders”, the IN said.
Earlier, INS Kochi, Tabar, Airavat, Trikand, Kolkata had arrived with filled and empty Oxygen containers, cylinders and other Covid related supplies from the neighbouring countries in the last three days.