Amid hospitals across the country facing a shortage of medical oxygen due to rising number of Covid-19 cases, the Centre on Monday said that the country has enough stock of the life-saving gas and that the shortage has arisen due to lack of transportation facilities to transfer oxygen from producing states to high-demand areas.
The Centre’s announcement comes in the backdrop of many hospitals in Delhi, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh constantly facing a shortage of liquid medical oxygen despite receiving emergency refills.
Union minister Piyush Goyal on Monday, said the turnaround time of oxygen-carrying tankers was reduced to 1-2 hours from 4-5 days by taking the help of the Indian Air Force transport aircraft which have been ferrying empty tankers.
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"We have enough stock of oxygen. The issue is transportation which we are trying to resolve by active involvement of all stake holders," Goyal told a press conference here.
His statement comes on a day when an Air India flight brought 318 oxygen concentrators to New Delhi from New York.
"There is absolutely no need to panic for oxygen as we are trying to resolve the issue of oxygen transportation from the producing states to high demand areas,” Goyal said.
He also said the Central government is monitoring the movement of oxygen-carrying tankers on real-time basis through GPS and making them available to hospitals at the shortest possible time.
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Since Friday, the home ministry has been coordinating efforts to deploy empty oxygen tankers and containers in various filling stations across the country to speed up the distribution of the much-needed medical oxygen in treating Covid-19 patients.
The coronavirus situation continues to be grim in India with 3,52,991 people testing positive and a record 2,812 deaths reported on Monday.
The Central government is trying to source oxygen from different parts of the country and making it available in worst hit states by running special trains.
(With PTI inputs)
