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Within minutes of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, in a telephonic conversation, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the oxygen allocation to the State to 500 MT, the Centre has increased the allocation to 419 MT from 220 MT.
On his first day in office on Friday, Stalin also wrote to Modi seeking a revision in oxygen allocation to the State.
Dr Sanjay Roy, Director, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in a letter to the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary on Saturday said the Inox Sriperumbudur allocation is proposed to be increased to 140 MT/day from 50 MT; JSW Salem’s allocation to 15 MT/day from 10 MT/day; National Oxygen Erode to 38 MT/day from 30 MT/day and Inox Puducherry to 44 MT/day from 40 MT/day.
Linde St Gobain’s allocation will be increased to 60 MT from 20 MT (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh have agreed to continue the existing supply of 35 MTs for the next four days as a transition agreement, to allow AP to activate alternate supply sources allocated to the State).
MSME ASUs existing capacity of 52 MT/day is proposed to be incorporated in the allocation plan. The air water bellary supply of 20 MT/day to Tamil Nadu is proposed to be reduced and swapped with Telengana.
The last two arrangements will be effective from May 11 to give sufficient time to states for the transition process, the letter said.
The overall allocation has been increased to 419 MT from 220 MT, the letter said.
At present, Tamil Nadu’s daily consumption of medical oxygen is around 440 MT and projected to increase by another 400 MT in the next two weeks. Unfortunately, in the National Oxygen Plan, the allocation for the State has been given as 220 MT only. Since this is untenable, State officers had a discussion with officials of DPIIT on May 1 and 2 and it was agreed that at least 476 MT of medical oxygen will be provided to the State immediately. However, this order has not yet been issued, which has created a lot of supply constraints for hospitals, Stalin’s letter to Modi on Friday said.
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