Control room starts today to monitor oxygen supply

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government will start a control room from Friday to monitor the oxygen supply and demand in the city on a real-time basis, even as the administration received only 10 urgent calls from hospitals on Thursday, with the administration saying the Capital received sufficient oxygen.

The government has also roped in e-commerce giant Amazon to track the cargo carrying liquid oxygen in the capital.

“Now that we have somewhat sorted the supply chain, our focus is on strengthening or improving the demand side. A control room will be set up by Friday, May 7, to monitor the real-time dashboard of the oxygen supply and demand in the city,” said Ashish Kundra, principal secretary transport and OSD, health.

He said the Delhi government has got a GPS tracking system on 41 tankers carrying oxygen in the city. Amazon has been roped in as a partner to track the cargo carrying the liquid oxygen in the national capital, he said.

Kundra said the increased allocation of oxygen for Delhi has eased the crisis to a great extent. “From 60 SOS calls we got from hospitals on May 2, the number of SOS had come down to 10 on May 5. The supply side change has had an immediate impact,” he said.

The government also said that oxygen supply has been strengthened by the containerised cargo movement through railways.

“The volume of oxygen increasing from 120 MT till May 4 to around 360 MT through the railway route on May 5 has expedited the supply. The movement is further being ramped up. Movement through railway is more efficient as there is no road congestion or chances of breakdown, etc,” Kundra said.

The Delhi government has appointed two IAS officers at the Kalinga Nagar facility of Tata Steel where oxygen is being produced. The government has formed a decentralized management system for the distribution of oxygen within the city to various hospitals and institutions, it said.

Besides, Delhi is also getting oxygen supply from cities such as Ghaziabad, Modinagar, Panipat and Rourkela (Odisha) through tankers and containers.

“Delhi on Wednesday received 730 MT oxygen – the highest so far – even though the demand is 976 MT. What we received on Wednesday was nearly 75% of total demand and came as a big relief. We thank the central government for this. But there is something that is concerning. Out of the 730 MT, around 250 MT were sourced through ad-hoc arrangements by the central government,” said Raghav Chadha, vice chairperson of Delhi Jal Board who is monitoring the day-to-day oxygen supply system in Delhi.

“We appreciate the initiative but we are also concerned about instability in supply in the coming days. We urge the central government to ensure that they send 700 MT oxygen from stable sources. If needed, permanently add all the sources from which ad-hoc 250MT was sourced on Wednesday to Delhi’s supply chain,” he said.