Bihar: Crackdown on black marketing, hoarding of oxygen and Covid medicines

Several hospitals in Bihar have reported shortage of oxygen and medicine such as Remdesivir over the past few days.

The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) of Bihar Police said it arrested at least four persons for hoarding and black marketing of oxygen and seized around 20 cylinders of the life-saving gas in Patna on Tuesday. The crackdown comes amid rampant black marketing of essential medical supplies to treat Covid1-19 patients, several of whom have died due to their shortage while several others have been forced to buy these at exorbitant prices.

Bihar: Relatives of Covid-19 patients carry empty oxygen cylinders to a refilling centre in Patna on Tuesday.

The EOU has constituted two teams comprising 10 policemen each to conduct raids and also set up a 24x7 control room with dedicated phone lines-- 0612-2215142 and 8544428427 inviting residents and NGOs to report illegal trade of essential medical supplies. “Traders are cashing in on the virus panic by jacking up prices of essential products,” said an official.

12 oxygen cylinders (50 litres each) were seized on Tuesday from Madhav Market near Maurya Hospital in Patrakar Nagar police station area in the capital along with the arrest of traders Dhiraj Kumar Mehta and Kameshwar Rai for hoarding. Police also raided Agamkuan police station area and seized another five cylinders (50 litres each) following the arrest of two hoarders, Priyansu Raj and Pratik Singh.

Earlier 57 oxygen cylinders (5 kg each) were seized in a raid in the SK Puri police station area. EoU officials said these were being sold to Covid-19 patients under home quarantine in Patna for as high as ₹40,000- over 10 times the normal price.

Several hospitals in Bihar have reported shortage of oxygen and medicine such as Remdesivir over the past few days. A senior officer of the health department, pleading anonymity, said the state was able to get 120-135 MT of medical oxygen per day against the current requirement of nearly 250MT. The centre has allocated 214MT of medical oxygen to Bihar every day. However, the state is struggling to store liquid medical oxygen in absence of cryogenic storage.

Additional director general of EoU, Nayyar Hasnain Khan said informers and plain clothes cops were keeping an eye on private hospitals, oxygen generation plants and medicine stockists to check illegal trade. The unit is also using technical surveillance to track offenders.

“We also appeal to people to not hoard oxygen cylinders and drugs as those who immediately need them will face difficulties,” Khan said.

Enforcement officers said several gangs were suspected to be involved in the hoarding of oxygen cylinders.

Facing criticism over its handling of the crisis, the Bihar government on Tuesday announced a statewide lockdown for 10 days from May 5 in order to get a grip on the situation after rebuke from Patna high court. 105 people died due to the infection in Bihar on Tuesday, while 14,794 fresh positive cases pushed the tally of the diseased to 523,841, health department bulletin said. The state-wide coronavirus death toll increased to 2,926.