Supreme Court forms National Task Force for transparent oxygen allocation
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12-member team to go beyond present crisis, prepare road map for transparent budgeting with States
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COVID-19 patients receive free oxygen provided by a Sikh organisation at Indirapuram in Ghaziabad on May 8, 2021.
| Photo Credit: PTI
12-member team to go beyond present crisis, prepare road map for transparent budgeting with States
The Supreme Court has constituted a 12-member National Task Force to streamline and ensure the “effective and transparent” allocation of liquid medical oxygen on a “scientific, rational and equitable basis” to States and Union Territories fighting COVID-19.
Mumbai vs Delhi: Why the capital is facing an oxygen crisis?
Acute paucity of oxygen in Delhi has generated grief and despair among the public and Covid-19 patients, brought the Centre close to contempt proceedings in Delhi HC and the Supreme Court forcing a commitment on supply lines for the UT.
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Relative of a Covid-19 patient waits to refill his oxygen cylinder in Delhi (Source: PTI)
Delhi, accustomed to extremely polluted air, is now being made to gasp for medical oxygen due to negligent administrative management and poor Centre-state coordination, courtesy political acrimony.
Acute paucity of life-saving oxygen in Delhi, which normally costs less than a packet of popcorn at a multiplex, has generated grief and despair among public and Covid-19 patients, brought the Centre close to contempt proceedings in Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court forcing a commitment on supply lines for the UT.
Hoarding of medical oxygen made an offence
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Kerala will take action against black marketeers, profiteers
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Kerala will take action against black marketeers, profiteers Hoarding of medical oxygen cylinders, black marketing and profiteering through illegal ways, non-disclosure of stock of oxygen, and holding on to industrial cylinders have been made offences under the Disaster Management Act, 2005; Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance, 2020; and other relevant provisions in law. The Chief Secretary has issued orders in this regard. The move is aimed at preventing death due to lack of medical oxygen during the COVID-19 surge.
District disaster management authority (DDMA); police; Department of Industries and Health; and Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) can initiate steps against those violating the directive.
Weâll get to that later.
National requirement
total daily production of oxygen is 7,127 metric tonnes.
On April 18, the central government prohibited manufacturers from
supplying oxygen for non-medical use but exempted nine industries â ampoules and vials, pharmaceuticals, steel plants, petroleum refineries, nuclear energy facilities, oxygen cylinder manufacturers, waste-water treatment plants, food and water purification.
These are all process industries that require uninterrupted operation of furnaces. They use
around 2,500 metric tonnes of oxygen, according to an official at the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation. This leaves just over 4,600 metric tonnes for medical use.
On
April 21, a central government official told the Delhi High Court that the daily demand for medical oxygen in the country had risen to 8,000 metric tonnes. Even if the 50,000 tons of oxygen reserve are utilised to meet the current demand, that would cover barely two weeks of need
Hospitals don t have enough oxygen for patients on ventilators. There are delivery bottlenecks. Families are sometimes told to get their own supplies. Health experts say it didn t have to be this way.