Letters to the editor dated May 12, 2021

The recent effor by the Indian Railways to move liquid oxygen through trains is welcome. It is also welcome that many nationshave given India a helping hand by supplying oxygen. The move comes at a time when the nation is gripped by an acute short supply of oxygen across various hospitals and medical institutions.

It is heart-wrenching to see precious lives being lost for want of timely oxygen supply. The stakeholders should have taken a proactive step before the rise of the second wave.

Hospitals and medical administrators should take necessary precautions to stock up oxygen supply on a priority basis and provide them to needy persons across various hospitals.

Policies to facilitate the availability of in-house oxygen production and supply along with justified distribution across hospitals must be put in place. Imports of liquid medical oxygen must be eased too.

Bengaluru

Reports show at least 190 Covid patients have died in India in recent days due to oxygen shortage. India’s current oxygen production capacity, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, is 9,103 tonnes, up from 7,259 tonnes some time ago. And the medical oxygen consumption was estimated at 3,842 tonnes. That was just 42 per cent of the daily production capacity.

In fact, there were just over 12.64 lakh active Covid-19 cases in the country when the Centre said on April 12 that the medical oxygen requirement was 3,842 tonnes. That number has since shot up to over 37.05 lakh and still rising. Therefore, a leap in the daily demand for medical oxygen upwards was inevitable.

In April 2020, the World Health Organisation had dwelt on the oxygen sources, oxygen needs estimation, oxygen storage and intra-hospital distribution, to respond to the needs of the infected, especially in low-and-middle-income countries. A competent government would have taken note of the warnings, studied the report, and initiated the remedial measures quickly.

The Supreme Court has now set up a 12-member National Task Force to assess the availability of oxygen across India and oversee the distribution. Transportation and storage being problems still unsolved, one can only hope that this Task Force succeeds in saving the gasping India.

Kozhikode

With reference to the editorial ‘Socially right’ ( May 12), considering the present painful position of various under-privileged sections of society, there is enormous need for encouraging more viable ‘social enterprises’ for caring and supporting them.

Unfortunately, in some really needy cases, the small agencies are unable to reach many due to their inability to comply with present tax regulations for registering as charitable entities. In this context, the eligibility criteria and other parameters suggested for entities to raise resources through social stock exchange platform are worthy and boosts the confidence of prospective investors. Further, publication of regular reports by stock exchanges about the performance of these listed entities in usage of funds in societal development and periodical ratings would help the valuation and trading of the monetary units or stocks issued by these entity to investors.

Bengaluru

SEBI’s initiative to create a social stock exchange will boost entities working in the social sector, enabling direct listing through a new class of securities. The Working Group Report on SSE has plugged the loopholes that could be exploited by unscrupulous entities and ensured only genuine enterprises working for social causes could use SSE as a fund raising platform. Preventing political and religious organisations to raise funds through SSE route is laudable.

Sivakasi

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