Punjab CM writes to Vardhan over O2 plants

Chandigarh, April 21

Faced with shortage of medical oxygen for Covid-19 patients, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today urged the Centre to ensure uninterrupted oxygen supply, with at least 120 MT daily allocation for the state, while reiterating his request for urgent steps to set up two pending pressure swing adsorption (PSA) plants approved by it two months ago.

Allocate 120 MT daily

In a letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh requested that allocation to Punjab be kept at least at 120 MT daily, excluding (22 MT) of Punjab quota in supply to the PGIMER, Chandigarh.

In a letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan, the Chief Minister sought immediate consideration of his request for uninterrupted oxygen supply from the liquid medical oxygen suppliers as per commitment on a daily basis. He also requested that allocation to Punjab be kept at least at 120 MT daily excluding (22 MT) of Punjab quota in supply to the PGIMER, Chandigarh.

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While the capacity for storage of medical oxygen for all healthcare facilities in the state was around 300 MT, daily consumption/requirement of medical oxygen as per the present case load in Punjab was around 105-110 MT, the Chief Minister pointed out, adding that this was expected to further rise to around 150-170 MT in the next two weeks as per the projections of increase in hospital admissions due to the rising case load.

Captain Amarinder noted that since the main requirement of the state was fulfilled from outside, adherence of supply as per the allocation made by the Centre for all states, including Punjab, was critical to be able to meet the daily requirements. The Central Control Group on Oxygen had allocated 126 MT (including 32 MT from the local ASUs) on April 15th, 2021. However, the allocation has subsequently been reduced to 82 MT from the week of April 25, 2021, said the Chief Minister, adding this allocation would be grossly insufficient to meet the demand. Further, the Central allocation control room had clubbed allocation of Punjab with the Union Territory of Chandigarh (22 MT) which further reduced the allocation for the state, he added.

The demand is currently fulfilled by the manufacturers, refillers, ASUs of the state and PSA plants in few of the districts, both in government and private sector. He said the biggest constraint faced by Punjab was the supply to the manufacturers/distributors and the refillers for liquid oxygen was fulfilled by manufacturers from outside the state (namely Inox, Baddi, HP; Air Liquide Panipat & Roorkee; and Linde, Selaqui, Dehradun) as there was no liquid medical oxygen plant within the state.

On the two pending PSA plants, which were approved by Centre two months earlier for Government Medical College and Hospitals at Patiala and Amritsar, he urged the Union Minister to initiate the process for setting them up expeditiously, in order to reduce oxygen requirement from the suppliers.