Oxygen supply now more than 3 times of what it was during first Covid-19 wave: PM Modi told at high-level meeting

PM Modi said that India has a very vibrant pharmaceutical sector and the Centre's continued close coordination with them will ensure proper availability of all medicines

Published on: May 12, 2021, 22:09:08 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting to review the availability and supply of oxygen and medicines to check the spread of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the country. The Prime Minister has been holding regular meetings on the Covid-19 situation, suggesting ways to check its spread and proactively taking key decisions to give a boost to health infrastructure in the country.

PM Modi has been holding regular meetings on the Covid-19 situation in the country.

Wednesday's meeting focussed on availability and supply of oxygen and medicines in the wake of various state governments flagging shortages in supply.

The Prime Minister took stock of the situation on oxygen availability and supply. The ministers told him that the supply of oxygen is now more than three times the supply during the peak of the first wave.

Amid reports of ventilators lying unused in some states, PM Modi said at the meeting that states should be asked to operationalise them in a time-bound manner and resolve technical and training issues with the help of the manufacturers, according to people aware of the developments.

He also said that India has a very vibrant pharmaceutical sector and the Centre's continued close coordination with them will ensure proper availability of all medicines, according to people cited above.

During the meeting, the ministers told the Prime Minister that the Centre is actively monitoring the supply of drugs being used in the management of Covid as well mucormycosis - a black fungus which has affected many Covid-19 patients. The symptoms of mucormycosis or black fungus include pain and redness around the eyes and/or nose, fever, headache, coughing, shortness of breath, vomits with blood, altered mental status.

PM Modi was also informed that government officials are in regular touch with manufacturers of oxygen and medicines to enhance production and extend all kinds of help needed. The ministers said that states are being provided medicines in good quantities.

The Prime Minister was also apprised that the production of all drugs including Remdesivir have been ramped up significantly in the last few weeks.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said that PM Modi was also briefed about the operations of oxygen rail and sorties by Indian Air Force (IAF) planes besides the status of procurement of oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders as well as the status of plants being installed across the country to produce the life-saving gas.

Many state governments, including worst-hit Maharashtra and Delhi, have flagged the issue of shortage of vaccines in their respective areas. Maharashtra health minister Rajesh Tope said that the state government has halted the vaccination of those between the ages of 18 and 44, and diverted the vaccines to give a second dose to those above the age of 45.

In Delhi, the lawmaker of ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Atishi said that stocks of Covishield will last only nine days.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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