Ever since the second wave of COVID-19 has wreaked havoc in India, many states have been facing a shortfall in oxygen supplies. While most of the states are trying to emerge out of the quandary, Delhi Government has failed miserably to tackle the crisis.
For the last several days, the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal has been saying that Delhi requires at least 976 MT of oxygen every day to cater to the oxygen crisis in the national capital, which the central government have not been able to provide them with.
In fact, on April 29, Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia had written to Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal, saying that Delhi needs 976 MT of oxygen daily as the government is increasing the number of beds for Covid patients.
Dy CM @msisodia writes to Union Minister for Commerce & Industry @PiyushGoyal
— AAP (@AamAadmiParty) April 29, 2021
➡️Increase Delhi’s oxygen allocation from present 490 MT to 976 MT
➡️In spite of the additional allocation made about 10 days ago, Delhi has not received even for a single day, the allotted quantity pic.twitter.com/vUfAkD2TWu
On May 4, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Raghav Chadha once again shared an oxygen bulletin for Delhi on Twitter wherein it was stated that Delhi had received only 433 metric tonnes (MT) oxygen on Monday against its requirement of 976 MT – which comes to 44 per cent of the requisite amount to mitigate the crisis.
Delhi’s Oxygen bulletin for 3rd of May 2021 pic.twitter.com/BkSoMxpZKy
— Raghav Chadha (@raghav_chadha) May 4, 2021
In fact, for all this while, the AAP government led by Arvind Kejriwal has maintained that Delhi needs a daily supply of at least 976 MT of oxygen to emerge out of the crisis in the national capital. The party leadership have been pinning the blame on the central government for not providing them with the required 976 MT of oxygen. But after the city-state was supplied with 730 MT of oxygen yesterday following court orders, now the CM is saying that they have enough oxygen to open thousands of new oxygen beds.
Arvind Kejriwal says he can open thousands of new oxygen beds
Amidst all this hullabaloo, Arvind Kejriwal, today, somehow gave the game away when he confirmed that Delhi’s total oxygen requirement is 700 MT and not 976 MT as claimed by his party leaders all this while. Kejriwal today thanked the Centre for supplying Delhi with 730 metric tonnes of oxygen. Kejriwal said Delhi received 730 MT of oxygen on Wednesday and the city would require a daily supply of 700 MT till the second coronavirus wave lasts.
“If 700 MT of daily oxygen supply is ensured by the Centre, Delhi government can set up around 9,000-9,500 more oxygen beds”, he said.
This means, while the govt was demanding 976 MT oxygen for existing hospitals in Delhi, the 700MT of oxygen itself will be much more than what the hospitals in Delhi needs now, as the state will have extra oxygen to open almost 10,000 new oxygen beds. One wonders here that if Delhi’s daily requirement of oxygen was indeed not more than 700 MT and is actually much less than that, as confirmed by the CM himself, what made the party leaders concoct a superfluous figure all this while. Why was the Delhi government demanding 976 metric tonnes of oxygen from the Centre? In fact, Kejriwal himself had with folded hands, urged the Centre to provide 976 tons of oxygen to them daily.
With the CM saying that they can set up 9,000-9,500 more oxygen beds with the 700 MT oxygen per day they will be receiving, it implies that their existing demand is not even 700 MT, as they are talking about setting up such a huge number of oxygen beds. Because according to their calculation, they will be having enough extra oxygen after meeting its current demand in Delhi hospitals.
With Kejriwal’s latest revelation, it becomes evident that the Delhi government had been inflating figures merely because it wanted to shift the blame on the central government. In the given situation, one is forced to believe that people are dying in Delhi lesser because of the inadequacy of oxygen but mostly because of the sheer incompetence and zero coordination efforts from the Arvind Kejriwal government.
Delhi’s demand is four times the consumption by Mumbai for similar COVID-19 cases
Interestingly, while the Delhi govt is claiming that it is receiving less than half of what it needs, the fact is that the quantity received by Delhi is more than what Mumbai consumed at a similar number of active Covid-19 cases.
