Facedwith shortage of medical oxygen supply for Covid-19 patients, Punjab ChiefMinister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday urged the Centre to ensureuninterrupted oxygen supplies, with at least 120 MT daily allocation for thestate, while reiterating his request for urgent steps to set up two pending PSAplants approved by it two months ago.
Ina letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, theChief Minister sought immediate consideration to his request for uninterruptedoxygen supplies from the Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) suppliers as percommitment on daily basis. He also requested that allocation to Punjab be keptat least at 120 MT daily excluding (22 MT) of Punjab quota in supply to PGIMER,Chandigarh.
Whilethe capacity for storage of medical oxygen for all healthcare facilities in theState is around 300 MT, daily consumption/requirement of medical oxygen as perthe present case load in Punjab is around 105-110 MT, the Chief Ministerpointed out, adding that this was expected to further rise to around 150-170 MTin the next two weeks as per the projections of increase in hospital admissionsdue to the rising case load.
CaptainAmarinder noted that since the main requirement of the State is fulfilled fromoutside, adherence of supply as per the allocation made by the Centre for allStates, including Punjab, is critical to be able to meet the dailyrequirements. The Central Control Group on Oxygen had allocated 126 MT(including 32 MT from the local ASUs) on April 15th, 2021.
However, theallocation has subsequently been reduced to 82 MT from the week of 25th April2021, said the Chief Minister, adding this allocation would be grosslyinsufficient to meet the demand. Further, the Central allocation control roomhas clubbed allocation of Punjab with the Union Territory of Chandigarh (22MT)which further reduces the allocation for Punjab, he added.
Thedemand is currently fulfilled by the manufacturers, refillers, ASUs of theState and PSA plants in few of the districts, both in government and privatesector. He said that the biggest constraint faced by Punjab is the supply tothe manufacturers/distributors and the refillers for liquid oxygen is fulfilledby manufacturers from outside the State (namely Inox, Baddi, HP; Air Liquide Panipat& Roorkee; and Linde, Selaqui, Dehradun) as there is no LMO plant withinthe State.
Onthe two pending Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants, which were approved byGovernment of India (GoI) two months earlier for Government Medical College andHospitals (GMCHs) at Patiala and Amritsar, he urged the Union Minister toinitiate the process for setting them up expeditiously, in order to reduceoxygen requirement from LMO suppliers.