No need to panic, India has enough oxygen stock, says government

NEW DELHI: Asking people not to panic over the availability of medical oxygen, the Centre on Monday asserted that the country has enough stock of the life-saving gas and that the key issue of its transportation to high-demand areas witnessing mounting COVID-19 cases was being addressed in the best possible way, even by roping in the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Addressing a media briefing here, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs Piyush Goyal highlighted the efforts that have been undertaken by the government in providing oxygen to hospitals in areas with high COVID-19 cases at the earliest. “Ghabrayen nahin, panic mat karen (Don’t worry, don’t panic). We have enough stock of oxygen. The issue is transportation. Transportation is a major challenge which we are trying to resolve by active involvement of all stakeholders,” he said.

“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, adding the oxygen producing states were mainly located in eastern and central India, indicating that it is far from the states where oxygen demand is high. Goyal said that since it was not possible to ferry oxygen-filled tankers by air, the Indian Air Force transport planes were pressed into service to airlift empty containers to reduce the turn-around time from 4-5 days to 1-2 hours. He said special trains are being run for faster movement of oxygen tankers and since Friday, the home ministry has been coordinating efforts to deploy empty tankers and containers in various filling stations across the country.

He said the central government is also monitoring the movement of oxygen-carrying tankers on real-time basis through GPS and making them available to the hospitals at the shortest possible time.