As Punjab continues to report an acute shortage of medical oxygen, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the Centre for more Oxygen tankers to be made available to the state. Punjab, the Chief Minister said, does not have enough tankers to transport the critical commodity for saving the lives of critically ill Covid-19 patients.
Amarinder Singh, at the Covid review meeting, said the state urgently needs more tankers, as it currently has only 15 at its disposal, with two more likely to come in soon. These, he said, are 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 seven days has been around 110-120 MT daily, which has also been erratic, the Chief Minister noted. In this period, the number of patients on oxygen support has gone up from 4,000 to around 9,000, and though the state government’s steps to monitor and streamline supplies through its control rooms has helped in keeping things stable, the situation remains fluid and a matter of concern, he added. 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%.
Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan said at 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 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 a plant in Baddi, 20 MT from Panipat, 15 MT from Roorkee, and 10 MT from Dehradun. Besides, around 80 MT is generated daily from the state ASUs and local PSA, and steps are being taken to increase production continuously, she said, adding that this is still not sufficient to meet the increasing demand.