PunjabChief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the Centre for more oxygentankers to be made available to the state, which did not have enough suchvehicles to transport the life-saving gas for seriously ill Covid-19 patients.
TheChief Minister, at the Covid review meeting, said the state urgently need moretankers, as it currently had only 15 at its disposal, with two more likely tocome in by Tuesday.
These,he said, were not enough to handle the requirement for transporting the oxygensupplies coming in from other states.
Punjabhas 195 metric tonnes (MT) allocation from various plants in other states, butthe actual supply received over the past seven days has been around 110-120 MTdaily, and this has also been erratic, the Chief Minister noted.
Inthis period, the number of patients on oxygen support has gone up from 4,000 toaround 9,000, and though the state government's steps to monitor and streamlinesupplies through its controls rooms has helped in keeping things stable, thesituation remains fluid and a matter of concern, he added.
Thecurrent consumption of oxygen in the state is more than 225 MT daily, while theaverage increase in demand every day is around 15-20 per cent.
ChiefSecretary Vini Mahajan told the meeting that in addition to the shortage oftrucks available with transporters in the state, the fact that a tanker takesaround four-five days to bring the 90 MT quota allocation from a Bokaro planthas made things worse.
Unlessthe state gets more tankers, the situation could aggravate, she added.
Inaddition to 90 MT from Bokaro, the state's current allocation is: 60 MT from aplant in Himachal Pradesh's Baddi, 20 MT from a plant in Haryana's Panipat, and15 MT from a plant in Roorkee and 10 MT from plant in Dehradun, both inUttarakhand.
Besides,around 80 MT is generated daily from the state ASUs & local PSA, and stepsare being taken to increase production on a continuous basis, she said, adding,however, that this was not sufficient to meet the increasing demand.
MedicalEducation Minister O.P. Soni said more oxygen cylinders were also needed atgovernment hospitals to meet the growing requirement.