Battling acute shortage of oxygen supply at hospitals in the national capital, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said the Union Territory would need more oxygen to meet the demand amid an alarming surge in COVID-19 cases. "Delhi has been facing an oxygen crisis for the past few days. The Centre fixes oxygen quota for all states. As per Delhi government's estimate, the UT needs 700 tons/day. The Centre had fixed it to 378 tons earlier and increased it to 480 tons yesterday. We need more, but we are thankful to them for this," Kejriwal said during a presser.
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The CM said that after the quota was increased, oxygen was scheduled to come from Odisha, too. "So it will take some time for oxygen to reach Delhi. We are making an effort to see if we can bring oxygen from there by air route," he said.
Delhi does not produce oxygen and gets its share of supply from other states. "The Centre also allotts companies that will supply oxygen to a particular state. Some of the governments, in whose states these companies are, had stopped the supply that was to come to Delhi from these companies," he alleged.
He added that the governments said they would use oxygen in their states first, even Delhi's quota. "(they said) they'll not let trucks come to Delhi. But I would like to thank the Centre and Delhi High Court for helping us a lot in the last 2-3 days. Due to this, oxygen has started reaching Delhi," he added.
