The Delhi Government on Saturday claimed that the High Court has curtailed the attempt by Central Government to wish away its responsibility from arranging oxygen tankers amid surge in Covid 19. “Centre pulled up by Delhi High Court and asked to immediately examine re-allocating Delhi quota of oxygen from nearby plants,” Delhi Government said in a statement.
Illustrating the High Court proceedings, a Delhi Government official said in the court, the Government stated that as against 480 MT of oxygen allocated, only 309 MT was received by Delhi on April 23, which is the main cause behind the crisis in Delhi’s hospitals.
“This follows a continuous trend where daily oxygen delivered is way short of quota assigned to Delhi. Delhi government has also stated that the root cause of this issue was that in the revised allocation plan devised by Central Government, for the first time ever, 102 MT of supply for Delhi has been allocated to plants far away in Odisha and West Bengal, more than 1000 kms away. This was done without Centre making any corresponding arrangement for tankers to supply this oxygen or any consultative process with Delhi Government,” quoted a statement from Chief Minister’s House (CMO), Delhi.
Notably, according to Delhi government the Delhi High court directed the Empowered Group of Central government re-examine this plan and to ensure plants closer to Delhi are allocated so that same tankers can make higher number of trips.
It must be noted that in the allocation plan for Delhi before 21.04.2021, one of the suppliers, INOX, was allotted 140 MT from its plants nearby Delhi. On several days earlier (15th and 16th April), INOX supplied even greater than 140 MT and up to 160 MT. However, in the revised plan issued by Central Government on April 21,201 supply from INOX from nearby plants was suddenly curtailed to 100 MT, whereas far way plants that are in no position to supply to Delhi were assigned over 100 MT. This irrational allocation is the chief cause behind the gap between allocated and actual oxygen supplied to Delhi.
Further, Delhi government submitted that as on date, there is a vast shortage of Cryogenic Tankers across the country and Centre is best placed to allocate adequate capacity to each state or if required import more tankers.
“Besides, Delhi being a non-industrial state, it does not have a ready fleet of Cryogenic tankers like many other industrial states. To this, without producing any concrete examples or numbers, Central officials once again evaded any kind of responsibility and said that some States are taking care of their tanker requirements and therefore Delhi should also do so,” a Delhi government representative said.