E-Paper
Punjab needs more tankers to transport oxygen: Capt to Centre
Chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the Centre for more Oxygen tankers to be made available to the state
Chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the Centre for more Oxygen tankers to be made available to the state.
He said the state urgently needs more tankers, as it currently had only 15 at its disposal. These, he said, were not enough to handle the requirement for transporting the oxygen supplies from other states. Punjab has a 195 metric tonne (MT) allocation from plants in other states, but the actual supply received over the past seven days has been around 110-120 MT daily. The number of patients on oxygen support has also gone up from 4,000 to 9,000.
“The situation remains fluid and a matter of concern,” he said. The current consumption of oxygen in the state is more than 225 MT daily. Chief secretary Vini Mahajan said a tanker takes 4-5 days to bring the 90MT allocation from Bokaro plant and unless the state gets more tankers, the situation could aggravate. In addition to 90 MT from Bokaro, the state’s current allocation is 60MT from a plant in Baddi, 20MT from Panipat, 15MT from Roorkee and 10MT from Dehradun. Another 80MT is generated daily from air separation units (ASUs) and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) plants in the state. Medical education minister OP Soni said more oxygen cylinders were also needed at government hospitals to meet the growing requirement.
