It was the May of 2021. The second wave of COVID was raging across the country and thousands were dying every day. Even more than the first wave of the merciless disease the second wave had shaken the humanity and death stared us in our faces. Many of us had to live through the trauma of losing a loved one. Deaths were either due to an advanced irreversible stage of the disease, or something as mundane as non-availability of oxygen.
I was the Chief Administrative Officer of the Rail Wheel Plant, Bela, Saran, Bihar. The plant was setup in the period 2012-14 at the behest of Lalu Ji, when he was the Railway Minister, to pamper his constituency. The much ignored wheel plant has now been put on a strong footing and is a significant supplier of wheels to the Indian Rail Industry. The turnaround of the Plant is a different story for another time. It is a cast wheel plant, where steel is melted and moulded into shape.
Now, all iron and steel plants that melt steel use oxygen as an essential input in the process. Oxygen is used mainly for oxidising excess carbon in the melt, which then escapes as Carbon Dioxide. Copious quantity of oxygen is required and therefore all steel melting establishments store liquid oxygen in large cryogenic tanks. Liquid Oxygen is vaporised and fed at some pressure into the bath of molten metal.
During the COVID crisis oxygen was coming from Assam and going to Delhi, bypassing Bihar. Such was the constant rant of Shri Kejriwal that not even one tanker was spared for Bihar or UP enroute. Oxygen was transported in cryogenic road tankers, which were loaded on flat wagons for long distance transportation. The only other nearby source was the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur and their Oxygen suppliers. When the demand of oxygen reached a peak, even we didn’t get liquid Oxygen for production. Industrial and Medical oxygen are somewhat different. Industrial oxygen is extremely pure, nearly 99%; Medical Oxygen has some moisture and other atmospheric gases mixed with it. Whereas the medical oxygen can’t be used in industries, the reverse is possible.
When the crisis of medical oxygen looked ominous, I told my officers to stop production and preserve whatever was left with us. We had four 20-tonne liquid tanks of which we ensured at least two were always full. One tonne of liquid Oxygen converts into 500 oxygen cylinders of the size you commonly see. My officers protested that production targets would be hit. I told them that the only target at that time was to save human lives. Then I offered 39 tonnes of liquid Oxygen that we had to the District Magistrate of Saran, a young officer. He was touched by the gesture but didn’t know how to collect oxygen and asked me if I could get it bottled in cylinders. I told him that bottling required high pressure pumps that would have to be imported from Germany or China, an impossible task at that time. It also required a license. Besides there were commercial bottlers all around. What was not available was oxygen.
Liquid Oxygen was delivered to us by producers in road tankers. I told the DM to send me road tankers in which I would do a reverse filling, which he could then take to bottlers in Patna, Muzaffarpur etc. and get cylinders filled. He asked me where he could get a tanker. I advised him to use his unlimited powers under the Indian Epidemics Act and grab whatever empty tanker was seen on the road. Nothing happened for eight days and people were suffering and dying in the meanwhile. On the ninth day I got a call from a Director in the PMO, “Sir, We have come to know that you have some oxygen in you plant. Can you spare some?” I told her that I had already offered all that I had to the local Collector but he was unable to collect it.
Things move rapidly after that. We received the first empty tanker sent by the District Administration on the same day. The DM asked about the payment. It told him to write a letter promising that all debits would be accepted so that I could place it in the files. Several tanker were reverse filled and sent for bottling. Hospitals would send truckloads of empty cylinders for refilling. I simultaneously offered two 20-tonne tanks to the District to procure oxygen from wherever they could and store it in our tanks. It became a smooth operation after that. Our Oxygen served almost the entire North Bihar and saved thousands of lives.
Wheel production suffered a setback for a month, which we later made up. We never raised a bill and none was paid. All for a good cause.
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