Paytm to set up oxygen plants for long-term sustainable supply across India

Homegrown digital financial services platform Paytm today announced that Paytm Foundation will be setting up oxygen plants in 12-13 cities as hospitals across India face oxygen shortage amid the tumultuous second COVID-19 wave. These oxygen plants would be directly installed at hospitals, which would serve the oxygen needs for the entire hospital. Paytm Foundation has also sourced over 21,000 oxygen concentrators that would be sent to government hospitals, COVID care facilities, private hospitals, nursing homes as well as Resident Welfare Associations in the mid of May.

Oxygen plants are devices that render possible the production of medical oxygen from ambient air while simultaneously supplying the gas to multiple beds. The company has currently raised Rs 10 crore from people across the country under its #OxygenForIndia initiative and has mirrored the donation amount making it a total contribution of Rs 20 crores. Paytm is working in conjunction with other prominent organisations including Elevation Capital and the American Indian Foundation. The donation garnered under the initiative will be used to purchase oxygen concentrators and oxygen plants, costing between 50 lakh to 1 crore each.

Paytm is currently in dialogues with the state governments and hospitals for affirmation and approval to set up these oxygen plants; once purchased, the oxygen plants will be provided free of cost to government hospitals by Paytm Foundation.

“Before economic growth, we need to think about the sustainability of our human forces, the people. While oxygen concentrators are good for short term support, we figured out that oxygen plants could provide our healthcare system with larger support. Hence, we decided to direct our donations to build oxygen plants at government hospitals for free. We are overwhelmed at the collective effort and support citizens of the country have shown to help pacify the ordeal caused by the pandemic’s 2nd wave. We are optimistic that with the right resources and empathy for our fellow countrymen, we will not only survive this crisis but also come out stronger,” said the Paytm spokesperson.

With aim of saving a maximum number of lives, the Paytm Foundation is also supporting other start-ups, organisations and enterprises to source OCs from the international market. This will help to minimize the timeline for logistical requirements while ensuring that hospitals and other COVID care centres receive the much-needed OCs sooner. The entire sourcing, regulatory approvals, and delivery will be managed by the foundation, while the other organizations only need to pay for the cost of the OCs that they will order.