PM Modi to meet experts to review oxygen, medicine availability

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to meet experts at 9:30 am on Sunday to review oxygen and medicine availability amid surge in coronavirus disease , news agency ANI reported.

He will review the human resource situation, in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic and ways to augment it.

The meeting comes at a time when the Delhi high court directed the Centre to supply 490 metric tonnes of allocated oxygen to the national capital on Saturday itself, or face contempt.

“Do you mean we will shut our eyes to the people dying in Delhi. We mean business. Water has gone above the head,” it asked the Centre. Thetop court said the government had made an allocation of oxygen to Delhi and should fulfil it.

The Centre on Saturday raised Delhi’s daily quota of life-saving gas to 590 metric tonnes from 490 MT. According to the Union health ministry, Delhi will get an additional 75 metric tonne of oxygen from LINDE Kalinganagar and 25 MT from JSW BPSL Jharsuguda .

Meanwhile, the government has informed the Supreme Court that PM Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah are “directly involved” in augmenting the oxygen supply on a “war-footing”.

“Resultantly, more and more medical oxygen is generated and is being made available every day, keeping not just existing requirements but potential future requirements,” the Centre said.

Many states in the country are facing a shortage of medical oxygen for very severe patients.

Meanwhile, a total of 84,599 beneficiaries in the 18-44 age group received their first dose of coronavirus vaccine in the country on Saturday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said. A total of 16,48,192 vaccine doses were given till 8 pm on Saturday, the 106th day of the inoculation drive, the ministry said. As many as 9,89,700 beneficiaries were vaccinated for the first dose and 6.58 lakh beneficiaries received the second dose, according to the provisional report. The total vaccinations across the country rose to over 15.66 crore. Hindustan Times