OFB in the Forefront of the War Against the Coronavirus
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ARTICLE OFB in the Forefront of the War Against the Coronavirus Gagan Chaturvedi Deputy Director General/ Public Relations Ordnance Factory Board he Ordnance Factories were parts for these guns, including Chairman of the Railway Board, established to strengthen the spare barrels and all the ammu- the DGOF and Chairman of the Tcapacity to wage war, both nition that was used was pro- OFB and the Chairman of ISRO, offensive and defensive. The arms, duced by the Ordnance Factories. the broad contours of the multi- ammunition, and equipment sup- Appreciation for the prompt sup- pronged strategy took shape. plied by the Ordnance Factories plies during the Kargil conflict The Director General Ordnance have played a crucial role in every by the then Chief of Army Staff, Factories and the Chairman of the skirmish, battle and war fought General V.P. Malik, is part of the Ordnance Factory Board, Mr. Hari by the armies of the East India official record. In keeping with this Mohan calmly reassured the man- Company, the British Empire and tradition, the Ordnance Factories darins at Delhi that the Ordnance the independent Indian Nation, are once again in the forefront of Factories have always stepped up in battlefields across continents. the war against the Coronvirus. whenwar clouds loom and that this The contribution of the Ordnance When the magnitude of the global time was no different. Factories has always been appre- pandemic became clear and the During the near total logistical ciated by the Government of the vulnerability arising out of the disruption caused by the largest day, whether it was for timely critical gaps in infrastructure and lockdown in the world, the lights supply of Gun carriages in South equipment sank in, the phone rang in 10-A Shaheed Khudiram Bose Africa during the Boer war, or for in the Ordnance Factory Board Road at Kolkata, the offices of the the role played during the First (OFB) for assistance in combating OFB, burned late into the night World Warfor meeting the hugely the pandemic. The OFB was being and marathon video conferences increased demand. asked to rapidly realign their pro- were conducted with the General During the Second World War, the duction processes tosupply differ- Managers of the forty one Ordnance 3.7 inch howitzer, manufactured ent kin-ds of products, to equip a Factories. The need of the hour was since 1925 was used very effective- new kind of army fighting a differ- to design, develop and mass pro- ly in the jungles of Burma. It also ent type of war against an invisible duce items that had never been proved critical during the Kashmir enemy. Estimated shortages were manufactured before, to create test- operations in 1948 in pushing back to the extent of a requirement of ing new facilities and to identify the Pakistani raiders. The wars of 27 million N95 masks, 15 million sources and to procure new materi- 1965 and 1971 were fought with PPEs, and 50,000 ventilators by als on a mass scale. Gradually, the the arms, ammunition and equip- June 2020. The frequency and scope dimensions of the problem became ment produced by the Ordnance of the consultations at the highest clear and a strategy of empower- Factories. The captivating images levels of the Govt. of India, through ing General Managers by increas- of the 155 mm Bofors Guns boom- phones and video conferences, in- ing their powers of purchase, me- ing during the Kargil operations creased by the day and on the 24th. ticulous planning, lateral thinking, made for unforgettable footage on of March during a video conference bold re-engineering, and innovate national television. All the spares between the Cabinet Secretary, the design rapidly helped to establish TENT 2M. Interior of tent medical. Hand sanitizer. ARTICLE supply lines of products, that had is also planned at the Ordnance never before been produced by Factory Ambernath near Mumbai, the Ordnance Factories. Mr. Hari thereby creating a Pan India net- Mohan, adopted a style of leader- work of facilities. These facilities ship that was personally engaged will also be made available to other in order to engage others so that agencies engaged in the supply of anyone and everyone could exer- coveralls so as to rapidly create cise initiative. The Chemical fac- capacity to fill the critical demand tories under the Ammunition and and supply gap. The Ordnance Explosive Division of the OFB Clothing Factory at Avadi, sup- began the bulk supply of hand plied the first lot of Coveralls to the sanitizers conforming to WHO Hindustan Latex Limited (HLL) on specifications, with the Cordite Hari Mohan the 13th of April against an initial or- Factory Arvankadu, near Ooty in DGOF & Chairman, OFB der of 1.1 lakh pieces. Tamil Nadu issuing the first con- is a single use personal protective In addition, the Ordnance Factory signment of hand sanitizer on the equipment (PPE) made from poly Medak (OFMK) near Hyderabad 31st of March to Hindustan Latex spun bonded non- woven fabric has undertaken the repair of ven- Limited (HLL) which had been which is totally impermeable to tilators in hospitals in Hyderabad nominated as the nodal agency for blood and other bodily fluids, con- on a war footing. All these efforts PPEs by the Government of India. forming to the American Society have earned widespread appre- This was followed by bulk sup- of Testing and Materials (ASTM) ciation in the Govt. as expressed plies from the Ordnance Factories ASTM F 1670 and ISO 16603 class 3 by the Defence Secretary Dr. Ajay at Bhandara near Nagpur and Itarsi specifications. Kumar, in his tweet on the 12th. in Hoshangabad in M.P. The main constraint was that the of April (@drajaykumar_ias) and The next achievement was the de- testing facility for conducting the in the media (https://www.you- sign and production of the Tent blood resistance test, wherein the tube.com/watch?v=OZZsHTCY_ Medical 2M by the Ordnance fabric is tested for impermeability, VQ;https://youtube.be/JHia08 Equipment Factory at Kanpur, as using synthetic blood at predeter- vziv M;https://youtube.be/ENsV a cost effective, light weight and mined pressures for specified peri- M7lz XIM;https:// wwwyoutube. innovative solution for the rapid ods of time was available only with comwatch?v= tA8KxgUSOOA; creation of quarantine and isola- the South India Textile Research https://khabar.ndtv.com/ video/ tion facilities. Made of a single Association (SITRA) at Coimbatore. show/news/ coronavirus-544537) layer of 450 grams per square metre The Ordnance Factories took up In addition to these major inno- (gsm) poly viscose cloth on a metal this challenge in a mission mode vations the Ordnance Factories frame of mild steel and aluminium at multiple locations and within a have set aside 280 beds in 10 hos- alloy , the tent has an area of 9.55 fortnight could design, manufac- pitals located in various states square metres which is enough to ture, and validate a suitable piece across the country for isola- contain two beds and all the neces- of machinery and get it accred- tion of patients. Aid to the lo- sary medical equipment required ited by the National Accreditation cal district authorities by way of to tend to patients in isolation. Board for Laboratories (NABL) at two factories on the 11th of April, donation of hand sanitizer and The first lot of these tents was sup- namely the Small Arms Factory at masks, providing food to the poor plied to the Govt. of Arunachal Kanpur and the Heavy Vehicles and the needy and to migrant Pradesh, a fact appreciated by Mr. Factory at Avadi near Chennai, workers on their way home are Kiren Rijiju, the Lok Sabha M.P. thereby creating a second test facil- some of the community level ini- from Arunachal Minister of State in ity in South India and a test facility tiatives taken up by individual the ministries for Youth Affairs and in North India for the first time. On factories. The employees have also Sport and Minority Affairs, who the 17th of April, three more facto- whole heartedly contributed to the tweeted his appreciation on the 14th ries, The Ordnance Factory Kanpur, PM CARES Fund. Once again, od April (@KirenRijiju). Another the Ordnance Factory Muradnagar, the Ordnance Factories, in keeping lot has since beenissued to the near Delhi and the Ordnance with their ethos, have come to the Govt. of Odisha. Perhaps the most Factory Hazratpur, in Firozabad aid of our valiant soldiers so ensure notable success was the produc- near Agra were also granted ac- the safety of the nation under all tion of the Coverall. The coverall creditation. Another such facility circumstances. KALEIDOSCOPE April, 2020 41.