The Indian Railways has developed a low-cost ventilator ‘Jeevan’ at its premier coach production unit,Rail Coach Factory (RCF), Kapurthala in Punjab.The cost of “Jeevan” is around Rs 10,000 without the compressor and it will not rise over Rs 30,000 even after adding a few more indicators.The ventilator is now awaiting the final clearance from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
• It should be noted that this ventilator has produced at a time when the nation needs them utmost due to COVID-19 effect. Currently India has 57,000 ventilators but their requirement can be reached between 110,000-220,000.
• Also, Jeevan will produce low cost-effective service as other ventilators cost between Rs5- Rs15 lakh.
Key Points:
-If Jeevan receives final clearance from ICMR then RCF will produce 100 such devices every day.
-The reason behind its low cost is that it is produced from materials which were already available in the factory. For eg: the portable compressor has been made from an air cooling machine, the body from coach components, the argon flow has been taken from a laser welding machine, while the microprocessor has been taken from the coach information system.