Modi govt squarely to blame for the oxygen crisis in the country

Despite sufficient stock of oxygen in India, COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the country have been dying because of its unavailability. Distribution issues have been preventing its availability at the hospitals. The Centre has been monitoring the situation for over a year, but issues still remains unresolved.

With unprecedented rise in demand of medical oxygen, the stock is depleting fast. The only way out from this grave crisis is faster resolution of distribution issues, enhancing medical oxygen generation, and increasing imports.

As of April 20, liquid medical oxygen (LMO) stock in the country was only 19,481 MT as against 20,683 MT on April 1. As per the data of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the daily consumption was only 3,842 MT as on April 12, 2021 which further grew sharply and has been over 5000 MT for the last few days and is increasing fast with many hospitals running out of oxygen.

Our LMO stock is thus not at a comfortable level, though the Union government has claimed that the total medical and industrial oxygen stock in the country is 50,000 MT with daily production capacity of 7,287 MT.

India floated a global tender for supply of 50,000 MT of LMO last week. In the present context, it may be considered a good decision to avoid running out of required stock. However, given the spike in spread of the COVID-19, its high positivity rate, and increasing need for oxygen, even this quantity may not be sufficient for our rising requirement. We may need faster import of this precious commodity in more quantities.

Russia and China have offered to help India in this regard, which India should be ready to accept without hesitation in the present circumstances.

We have issues with China, but for the time being, India should not make it a prestige issue and should not decide against the offer of supply of LMO, because we urgently need it to save our people. India will have enough time to resolve the outstanding issues with China once the devastation by this pandemic is over.

Indian may be required to import LMO in large quantities for a long time to come, and therefore, the government must have a plan of action ready for short and long term requirement.

India is not in a position to afford now any criminal neglect of the requirement of oxygen in India, such as we have seen in the past. One of them is India’s export of oxygen amidst the pandemic during April 2020 to January 2021 to the tune of 9884 MT industrial grade oxygen as against only 4500 MT in 2019-20. Even 12 MT medical grade of oxygen was exported during the pandemic, which is shocking.

Modi government took over a year to ban export of oxygen that is now being implemented from April 22, 2021. We have lost many lives due to non-availability of oxygen in our hospitals. Had the government maintained the stock by not exporting oxygen, many lives would have been saved.

India cannot depend on imports of such a precious commodity in the present scenario because there will always be a risk of it being blocked by the exporting countries if it is locally required. Therefore, the only solution may be to enhance the production of medical grade oxygen domestically which has all along been neglected by Modi government despite its increasing need since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country.

Despite shortage of oxygen during the first wave of the pandemic, Modi government took eight long months to make tenders for oxygen plants in hospitals of the country, and even after six months of tendering, many of them are yet to be set up and fully operational.

The Prime Minister recently asked officials to make arrangements for enhancing the domestic production of LMO to cater to the needs of our patients, but one is not sure that the criminal neglect of setting up new plants will not continue this time.

The capacity enhancement needs a different strategy than the present one. The total oxygen producing capacity of India is 7,127 MT per day, but as on April 1, the country was producing 6,544 MT. It has risen to 8,090 MT per day as on April 20. Though our plants are producing more than their capacity, it is far less than our requirement. Therefore, there is no alternate but to increase our production capacity. However, looking at medical grade oxygen production would be more disheartening.

As on April 1, MLO production capacity was only 2,264 MT per day for LMO as against 4,861 MT for industrial oxygen. Since it was far less than our requirement, industrial oxygen was diverted for medical use. This adhoc arrangement increased the medical grade production to the level of 6,283 MT per day while leaving only 1,807 MT for industrial use.

Had the government taken sufficient steps to increase the medical grade oxygen producing capacity, we might not have lost so many lives. India must enhance LMO producing capacity because depending on imports would be dangerous.

The third most important thing the government should do immediately is resolving the distribution issues due to which we have landed into such a horrible crises causing deaths of a large number of people. Faster movement of LMO consignments must be assured so that critical patients may get them in time. There should not be any restriction on the way.

Allocation of the same need wiser considerations without corruption or favouritism. Profiteering should be checked immediately. Anyone guilty of obstructing the smooth flow must be brought to book. We must do away with bureaucratic hurdles, political interference, and interested lobbies not only to solve the distribution issues, but also to enhance the production capacity for LMO and faster imports to prevent running out of our LMO stock.

(IPA Service)

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