With oxygen supplies in the state depleting fast, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday sent another SOS letter to Union Health & Family Welfare Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, for the second time in two days, for urgent increase in allocation of quota.
He also directed Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to pursue with the Government of India for urgent supplies, given the serious situation, with patient load increasing due to influx from Delhi and other states, and pushing up demand for medical oxygen. The Chief Minister further asked the Chief Secretary to rush urgent supplies to Amritsar, where precious lives were lost yesterday due to oxygen shortage in a private hospital. Given the criticality of the situation, he has sought four hourly reports from Principal Secretary Industries on the state’s hospital-wise demand-supply situation of oxygen.
In a letter to the Union Health Minister on Sunday followed the Centre’s failure to increase the allocation to Punjab as per the new allocation of LMO issued on Saturday, despite his plea for enhancement to at least 250 MT of LMO per day.
The Chief Minister had written to the Union Health Minister requesting for an increase Punjab’s Liquid Oxygen quota to 250 MT daily due to continuous surge of Covid cases, seeking his urgent personal intervention in this regard. Writing in continuation of his earlier letter, the Chief Minister, on Sunday, said, “the situation has become very grim over last few days as our supply of LMO has not been able to meet the increased demand.”
He further wrote that despite his request for allocation of at least 250 MT of LMO per day to Punjab from outside the state, the new allocation of LMO issued on 24 April 2021 by Government of India did not increase the allocation to Punjab, though allocation to other states (Karnataka (167%), Telangana (20%), Rajasthan (29%), etc.) increased substantially.