24/7 Oxygen Production Units Assembled In Telangana

In the midst of surging Covid-19 cases and paucity of critical treatment supplies, including medical oxygen, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy today announced that the Centre had sanctioned the installation of oxygen concentrators that would produce oxygen from ambient air for the treatment of critical Covid-19 patients in Telangana.

The minister made the announcement after inspecting some Covid-19 centres, including the Gandhi Hospital, and said, "Oxygen concentrators have been imported in order to deal with the shortages of medical oxygen in Telangana. They will be set up at the Gandhi Hospital and the Government Teaching Hospitals in Karimnagar and Warangal. The concentrators are currently being assembled at three locations, and should be fully functional by the first week of May."

Elaborating further on the machines, Reddy added, "Once fully functional, each machine will be able to produce 960 to 1000 litres of oxygen per minute from ambient air. The two machines to be set up at the Gandhi Hospital will therefore produce nearly 2,000 litres of oxygen in a minute for the hospital's patients. Meanwhile, the Centre has already allotted about 360 metric tonnes of oxygen to Telangana. All the steps necessary to make oxygen available to the state as soon as possible are currently being made."

He also flayed the TRS government for politicising the pandemic, and accused Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and his family of making "baseless allegations" against the union government on the issue of oxygen shortage in the state. He also alleged that the CM and his family were using the issue to gain political mileage even at a time of crisis.

Referring to a recent statement made by the ruling party's leaders, that the Centre was intentionally not supplying oxygen to the state, the BJP leader maintained that it was "unfortunate" that such "false statements" were being made against the Centre.

"This is barely the time where parties should resort to playing some cheap blame game. We must all come together to support those in need, and to overcome this pandemic. There is no truth to the claim that BJP-led states are getting more oxygen than other states," he added.

Reddy then claimed that in reality, no such discrimination had taken place, and clarified that the oxygen amount of oxygen being supplied to each state was being decided by the number of Covid-19 patients and the number of deaths registered every day.

The minister also assured the people of Telangana that the state would get adequate oxygen and Remdesivir injections in the next two or three days and also made clear the fact that the union government would not affix the prices of vaccines.