Oxygen shortage is due to incompetence

The second wave of Covid-19 has led to a sharp surge in demand for hospital beds, medicines, and, crucially, oxygen. Last week, the Centre took several steps to tackle the problem of oxygen shortage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed authorities to ensure the movement of vehicles carrying medical oxygen. The government prohibited the supply of oxygen for industrial purposes to divert the stock for medical use, began a process to import 50,000 metric tonnes of medical oxygen, claimed that domestic production would double, and said that Indian Railways would run special trains to supply oxygen to states and Union Territories that are facing a shortage.

While this are welcome, the scarcity of oxygen could have been avoided with better planning and proactive governance. According to news portal, Scroll.in, it took the Centre eight months to invite bids for new oxygen generation plants after India declared the pandemic to be a “disaster” on March 14, 2020. Surprisingly, the delay was not due to a lack of funds. The outlay for 162 oxygen plants is ₹201.58 crore, which had been allocated from the PM-Cares fund. However, only 33 plants are operational, according to the health ministry.

This postponement, which is leading to the loss of lives, was a result of administrative inertia, and a flawed tendering process that awarded contracts to companies that are ill-equipped to do the work required. In some cases, state governments failed to provide the infrastructure to set up plants. Last year, a hard lockdown was imposed to ramp up the health infrastructure. The acute shortage of oxygen shows that a lot of critical infrastructure is yet to be set up, not just due to administrative incompetence but also misreading of the potency of Covid-19’s second wave.