COVID-19: Punjab seeks more oxygen tankers from Centre to meet increasing demand
May 03, 2021
Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], May 3 : Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the Centre for more oxygen tankers to be made available to the state.
The Chief Minister, at the Covid review meeting, said that the state urgently needs more tankers, as it currently had only 15 at its disposal, with two more likely to come in by tomorrow. These, he said, were not enough to handle the requirement for transporting the oxygen supplies coming in from other states.
"Punjab has a 195 MT allocation from various plants in other states, but the actual supply received over the past 7 days has been around 110-120 MT daily, which has also been erratic. In this period, the number of patients on oxygen support has gone up from 4000 to around 9000, and though the state government's steps to monitor and streamline supplies through its controls rooms has helped in keeping things stable, the situation remains fluid and a matter of concern," said Singh.
The current consumption of oxygen in the state is more than 225 MT daily, while the average increase in demand every day is around 15-20 per cent.
Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan said that the meeting that in addition to the shortage of trucks available with transporters in the state, the fact that a tanker takes around 4-5 days to bring the 90 MT quota allocation from the Bokaro plant has made things worse. Unless the state gets more tankers, the situation could aggravate, she added.
In addition to 90 MT from Bokaro, the state's current allocation is 60 MT from the plant in Baddi, 20 MT from the plant in Panipat, 15 MT from the plant in Roorkee, and 10 MT from the plant in Dehradun. Besides, around 80 MT is generated daily from the state ASUs and local PSA, and steps are being taken to increase production on a continuous basis, she said, adding, however, that this was not sufficient to meet the increasing demand.
Medical Education Minister OP Soni said more oxygen cylinders were also needed at government hospitals to meet the growing requirement.
