NEW DELHI: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh has hailed ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) for aiding India’s COVID battle.In a media briefing, the Minister In-Charge Space said, under the inspiring leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the last seven years, ISRO has always been at the forefront in bringing laurels to the nation by way of series of internationally acclaimed accomplishments, which have also been acknowledged by world’s premier Space institutions like NASA. Continuing with the same zeal and commitment, during the last one and a half year, even though many of the Space projects were constrained to slow down due to COVID, but the scientific fraternity at ISRO lost no time in diverting their resources and energies to assist India’s fight against Corona.Striking a note of appreciation, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it is not a widely known fact that ISRO had been providing Liquid Oxygen continuously on a large scale to several State governments from their own manufacturing facilities or from the existing stock. Not only this, he said, ISRO also engaged in repurposing existing resources, scaling up of capacity of their facilities and also transferred technology to supplement the country’s fight against the second wave of COVID-19, when the wave was at its peak.Pertinent to mention that Liquid Oxygen, known as Lox in the parleys of Space Science, is a critical resource in the working of Space agencies and it is used as an Oxidizer in Cryogenic Engines. Diversion of Lox in the service of COVID aid has been an impressive gesture on the part of the ISRO fraternity.What is remarkable, said Dr Jitendra Singh, is that even though daily production capacity of liquid Oxygen is 2.5 Tons, during the Covid crisis, the scientists at ISRO worked day and night to ensure that the production of Liquid Oxygen is scaled up to 11 Tons or so per day and be made available wherever required.Besides this, the Minister informed that the ISRO has also provided large capacity Fuel Tanks available with them to be used as stores of Liquid Oxygen in different States. These tanks offer the vital service of carrying out mass storage of Liquid Oxygen, which can be distributed to the health agencies. Further, the ISRO has also been contributing by transferring technology of Oxygen Concentrator and Ventilator developed in-house to Indian Industry for mass manufacture.Like in other spheres of life, Dr Jitendra Singh noted that many scientists and staff members of ISRO got infected with Corona at different points of time but they continued their work and activities against all odds.
