Chennai: With the southern states now facing high demand or shortage of oxygen amid the surge in Covid cases, the oxygen-sharing arrangement among them has come under strain.
The Kerala government, which had been sending surplus medical oxygen to neighbouring state Tamil Nadu and also to Andhra Pradesh, has now halted the supply citing higher demand at home. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have both sent SOS calls to the Centre demanding higher allotment of oxygen.
Tamil Nadu is still sending oxygen to Andhra from its two plants, but officials said this is “draining the state of an important resource”.
Officials in Kerala said they had to stop supply to ensure the state is able to meet its own demand, with its Covid caseload expected to rise to 6 lakh by 15 May.
All three states have written to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre flagging high demand of oxygen and the shortage faced by them. In Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, hospitals have also reported death of patients due to shortage of oxygen or related issues.
Speaking to ThePrint, Tamil Nadu officials said they are getting oxygen from four private companies and are awaiting an oxygen train from Odisha. Meanwhile, the Sterlite plant in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi started production Thursday.
Letters to PM Modi
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week said the state cannot supply any more oxygen to its neighbouring states, and that its buffer oxygen stock has depleted to 86 tonnes.
The state’s Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization is in the process of setting up additional oxygen production facilities in Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad, and the government has also seized about 2,473 industrial oxygen cylinders lying unused in industries.
“Initially, we supported other states in the south, not just because we had a surplus of oxygen, but because we needed to support each other in this time of human tragedy,” Dr Mohammed Asheel, the executive director of Kerala Social Security Mission, told ThePrint. “Now our CM has said we are not in a position to continue supporting like this.”
While Vijayan’s letter mentioned that Kerala would be able to send the allocated 86 tonnes of oxygen to Tamil Nadu only till 10 May, a senior health official in Tamil Nadu told ThePrint that Tamil Nadu was able to convince the neighbouring state to continue the supply for two more days.
Tamil Nadu is also reeling under pressure to provide medical oxygen to its people. On 7 May, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin wrote to the Centre demanding a higher allotment. “At present Tamil Nadu’s daily consumption of medical oxygen is 440 tonnes. This is projected to increase by another 440 MT in the next 2 weeks taking our oxygen requirement to around 880 MT,” the letter read.
A very important letter from @mkstalin to @narendramodi.. pic.twitter.com/lWUF4pjmp1
— Pramod Madhav♠️ (@PramodMadhav6) May 7, 2021
K. Nanthakumar, the nodal officer for the state’s oxygen monitoring and emergency response, told ThePrint, “Previously, Inox Palakkad was supplying oxygen to Tamil Nadu but now Linde will be supplying oxygen to Tamil Nadu. St Gobain Linde (in Tamil Nadu) will be supplying around 60 metric tonnes to the state now. The supply was tapered off in the last two days to prevent disruption. On 11 May, Palakkad sent 40 MT oxygen and on 12 May they sent 30 MT to Tamil Nadu.”
There are four private companies that are currently supplying 490 metric tonnes of oxygen to Tamil Nadu. These are National Oxygen, St Gobain Linde, Inox and SigcilSol Private Ltd.
Nanthakumar added: “Three days from now, an oxygen train is expected to arrive from Rourkela. We have placed a demand for 100 MT of oxygen.”
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh CM Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy wrote to the Centre Tuesday seeking additional supply of oxygen, with the state facing a shortage.
“The allocation of medical oxygen to Andhra Pradesh as on 24 April was 480 MT.. On May 8 a revised allocation was made to Andhra Pradesh at 590MT, however on this day our caseload was 1,87,392… Hence I request your intervention to increase the Liquid Medical Oxygen allocation to 910 MT and also allocate 20 LMO Tankers , so as to ensure that the oxygen supplies are ensure for all hospitals…,” he wrote.
Andhra Pradesh is currently drawing 35 MT oxygen from a St Gobain plant in Chennai and 23 MT from a plant in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, 20 MT from a plant in Karnataka’s Bellary and 210 MT from Odisha.
While Nanthakumar confirmed that Tamil Nadu will continue to provide oxygen from its plants to Andhra Pradesh, another official in the state said, pleading anonymity, the supply is draining the state of an important resource during a shortage.
A third official, who also did not wish to be named, said, “It is no longer a problem of monitoring, rather a supply-demand mismatch.”
ThePrint reached Shan Mohan Sagil, the nodal officer for oxygen supply in Andhra Pradesh for a comment on Kerala halting oxygen supply to the state. But he said he “cannot comment on it right now” and that they are “working on it”.
Also read: Why these Covid patients will need oxygen weeks or even months after recovering
Southern states facing oxygen shortage
While Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have written to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, giving details of oxygen stock and requirement, other two states in the south, Karnataka and Telangana, also appear to be facing a shortage of oxygen.
In Karnataka, days after 24 patients died at the Chamarajanagar district hospital after the government facility ran out of oxygen, 20 more people — 15 of them Covid patients — died in the same hospital Monday allegedly due to shortage of oxygen.
The same day, 11 patients undergoing Covid treatment died at the Sri Venkateswara Ramnarayan Ruia government hospital in Andhra Pradesh’s Tirupati, also due to shortage of oxygen. CM Reddy blamed it on “delayed” oxygen supply from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In Tamil Nadu, 13 Covid patients died at the government hospital in Chengalpattu on 4 May due to a drop in oxygen pressure. The hospital dean, however, denied that there was any shortage of oxygen, even as CM Stalin in his letter to PM Modi called it an “unfortunate incident”.
In Telangana, eight persons died at the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) in Gachibowli this week due to an alleged shortage of oxygen, though the hospital later denied the claim in a statement saying the deaths were due to natural progression of the disease.
Private hospitals in Kerala too are facing oxygen shortage. The Kasaragod Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) Sunrise Hospital had to shift all its Covid patients to other hospitals Monday. Aramana Hospital and Heart Center, a private hospital in Kasaragod, was also left with no oxygen cylinders for its patients Tuesday.
Dr L. Parthasarathy, the head of anaesthesia department at the Government Multi Super Speciality Hospital in Chennai, who is now managing the state oxygen control room, said: “The situation in southern states is particularly grim because most of the oxygen production plants are in the north of the country. Even if they are sent by train, it will take days to reach here.”
By then, he said, “no one knows what kind of crisis can hit Tamil Nadu”.
“As a result, southern states are now relying on countries geographically closer to the them (for supply of oxygen),” he said, referring to the 300 oxygen concentrators Tamil Nadu received from Singapore.
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