Top central govt official steps in to ensure smoother interstate oxygen movement
The second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak has sparked shortages of hospital beds and other crucial supplies such as oxygen and medicines. Oxygen is a critical medical intervention against Covid-19
The Union home ministry has stepped in to ease the medical oxygen supply crisis reported from several regions this week, with top officials directly intervening in specific instances in which tankers were restricted by one state from going to another, a top officials told HT.
The problem has been in focus since Tuesday night after some hospitals in Delhi ran out of supply or received replenishments with minutes to spare, prompting the state government to repeatedly raise the issue. Delhi has no large scale manufacturing of its own and has had to rely on Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
“There were some issues with regard to the [oxygen] shortage, but we are sorting it out. During the day, some plants see some problems, but we are on it,” said Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla. “Whatever allotment has been made to states should be allowed to go.”
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Bhalla said the Centre is trying to reiterate a September 18, 2020, order that said no restrictions shall be imposed on oxygen manufacturers and suppliers to limit the supplies only to the hospitals of the state where they are located.
The second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak has sparked shortages of hospital beds and other crucial supplies such as oxygen and medicines. Oxygen is a critical medical intervention against Covid-19, which causes respiratory distress in some cases. The pandemic has accelerated the global demand for it. The need for oxygen has increased to 1.1 million cylinders in low to middle-income countries alone, according to the World Health Organisation.
All previous daily records were broken in India as it reported 315,909 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday. The country also reported the most single-day infections globally ever.
All India Industrial Gases Manufacturers Association head Saket Tiku said Bhalla had to intervene in several cases as authorities in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were among those disallowing free inter-state movement of oxygen.
“Air Liquide [a manufacturer] is reporting that their trucks are lined up in Panipat to bring oxygen to Delhi, but a police team has reached and is not allowing the trucks to move,” said Tiku.
Another manufacturer, Linde, has also sent a similar complaint to a control room in Delhi earlier.
In its message, Linde said a senior drugs inspector reached its Faridabad plant with her team on Wednesday and was not allowing supplies to go to Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR). It added they were told the supply will go to only Haryana. “We supply 70 tpd of Medical Oxygen to all major government and private hospitals at Delhi-NCR which includes all the covid hospitals. Looking forward for your support to remove the restriction immediately to avoid any fatality,” said the message from Linde.
Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala said he has no information of any such developments. But central government officials, who have mapped the oxygen needs nationally, are worried.
“If people get parochial about oxygen, how will we manage,” said a member of an empowered group formed to deal with the situation. The group is meeting every two hours to assess the situation.
Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said at a press conference on Wednesday that it had to ask for Centre’s help on two occasions, when supply trucks were stuck in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh between Tuesday and Wednesday. “If we have to keep chasing each truck and ask Centre to intervene, then it’s not a very good situation,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
