No end in sight for Karnataka's oxygen crunch

After days of denial, the government spoke of efforts to scale up oxygen generation, but it may be too little, too late.

Although the government announced on Tuesday that JSW Steel would supply 400 tonnes of oxygen per day, company sources said that there are two caveats: First, the supplied quantity will be between 350 and 400 tonnes and secondly, it is not exclusive to Karnataka as long as the Centre doesn’t approve a request in this regard by the state government.

“JSW Steel has assured the state government that it can provide oxygen by the end of April, provided it gets the directions from the Centre. According to the current allocation policy, the entire quantity is not supplied to just one state, but is distributed among all southern states,” JSW sources clarified.

This means that the state will have to do with the current oxygen stock for at least a week more, with no guarantee that more oxygen will be released
afterwards.

Read: Provide oxygen forthwith to hospitals by whatever means, Delhi High Court tells Centre

Already, the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes’ Association (Phana) said the city is actually getting only 100 tonnes of oxygen a day. The severe shortage prompted Minister of Health Dr K Sudhakar to announce on Wednesday that all small hospitals with less than 30 beds would be relieved of Covid-19 duties.

“These hospitals generally lack oxygen storage capabilities and with the ongoing shortage, they are imperilling patients,” he said.

“The removal of these small hospitals would omit about 100 to 200 beds from the Covid bed network. But we accept the decision as it is for the greater good,” added Phana president, Dr H M Prasanna.

Just how much oxygen does Bengaluru Urban need? The municipal Chief Commissioner, Gaurav Gupta said that before the pandemic, medical oxygen requirements were only about 50 tonnes a day. It has increased by five times. Oxygen is a traded commodity but we never thought much about it until it started to run low,” he said.

Request by Karnataka

Commerce and Industries Minister Jagadish Shettar told DH that the shortage is primarily in Bengaluru as of now. He said currently, about 600 of the 812 tonnes being produced daily by seven major manufacturers in Karnataka was being supplied across the state.

However, there is a requirement of around 1,239.17 tonnes of oxygen in the next few days considering a sharp surge in Covid-19 cases. As the entire quantity of oxygen manufactured in the state is not made available to the state’s requirements as per the current allocation policy, our chief secretary has written to the central government for diverting all the quantity manufactured in the state for use across the hospitals within the state,” Shettar said.

“I have also told all the companies, including JSW Steel, manufacturing oxygen to supply their quantity to Karnataka alone,” he added.