Vijayawada, Jan 10 : Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has virtually inaugurated 144 Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen plants at various government hospitals in the state.

Speaking on the occasion, he said the government was taking all measures to contain the coronavirus ahead of the third wave. The 144 oxygen plants have come up for Rs 426 crore.

The government is also providing a 30 percent subsidy to private hospitals with over 100-bed capacity to set up oxygen plants.

He said that steps were taken to achieve self-sufficiency of oxygen as the entire country faced severe shortage of oxygen during the second wave of Covid-19.

Further, the Chief Minister said the government had purchased 25 oxygen cryogenic ISO containers for transporting Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) along with 74 LMO tanks.

Oxygen pipelines were set up to 24,419 beds in government hospitals at a cost of Rs 90 crore and Pediatric Care Units with 20 beds have been set up in community health centers.

With the possible threat from Omicron, a genome sequencing lab has been set up in Vijayawada, the second in the country next to Kerala.(UNI)