Chandigarh, May 5: Amid the Oxygen crisis triggered by thespiralling Covid cases, the Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab government onWednesday announced thrust sector status for all Oxygen product units, whileappointing a nodal officer to coordinate with Customs Department for quickclearance of foreign aid.
The Chief Minister said with the way things were goingcurrently, the situation was likely to worsen in the coming days, with nobodyknowing how many more waves of Covid would hit the country and the state.
The status, approved at a virtual cabinet meeting chaired bythe Chief Minister today, will apply to oxygen production units with minimumcapacity of 700 cylinders per day equivalent to 5 MT, Oxygen cylindermanufacturers/fabricators, Oxygen concentrator manufacturing units. Oxygenrefilling units will not be covered by the special status.
With this decision, the units (both old and new) will becomeeligible for 100 percent exemption from Change of Land Use (CLU)/ExternalDevelopment Charges (EDC), Property Tax, Electricity Duty, Stamp Duty andInvestment Subsidy, by way of reimbursement of GST upto 125 percent of FixedCapital Investment made in the land and machinery.
Notably, the status of thrust sector to oxygen productionunits has been conferred under clause 10.6 of Chapter-10 of Industrial &Business Development Policy, 2017 and subsequently as per clause 2.22 ofDetailed Schemes and Operational Guidelines, 2018.
The Cabinet took the decision to help the state cope withthe emergent situation arising out of acute shortage of oxygen in view of theincreased case load due to unprecedented Covid pandemic in the state. For theweek ending May 4, the state had average positivity rate of 11.6%, with CFR of2.1%, from a sample size of 74 lakh.
Currently, the daily Oxygen allocation to Punjab stands at195 MT from outside the state: Inox plant at Baddi (60 MT), Air Liquideplant at Panipat (20 MT), Air Liquide plant at Roorkee (15 MT), Lindeplant at Dehradun (10 MT) and Inox plant at Bokaro (90 MT). However, only 140MT is actually being supplies from these plants on a daily basis, with shortageof tankers hampering lifting of Oxygen especially from Bokaro. Two additionaltankers made available by IOCL have been unutilised due to technical/compatibilityissues. Further, despite repeated requests, Linde & Air Liquide are notreleasing their committed quota.
The cabinet was informed that state governments have alsocreated problems in supplies from the plants that are in their jurisdiction.The plants have also had issues of tripping and power outages leading to supplydisruptions and delays.
Health Secretary Hussan Lal informed the cabinet that 14districts had positivity over 10% and 6 over 11%, with Mohali the highest at25%. Deaths were fewer in the young, he said. The situation was grim with 70%L2 beds and over 80% L3 beds ingovernment and private hospitals occupied, the Health Secretary said, addingthat with 10-30 patients going on ventilator every day, things were not good.
Besides initiating the process to add 2000 beds inGovernment medical colleges, district hospitals, and the temporary hospitals inBhatinda and Mohali , by the end of the month, direct recruitment had beenstarted for regular staff, while a large number of staff, including studentsand interns as well as outsourced staff, had also been put on special Covidduties.
Orders had been placed for essential drugs, including 50lakh Remdesivir 100 mg injections, and the supplies were expected in the nextfew days, said Hussan Lal.