After a Supreme Court panel report said that the Delhi government exaggerated the city’s oxygen requirement at the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, a fresh war of words has begun between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The panel, led by AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria, included Delhi government Principal Home Secretary Bhupinder Bhalla, Max Healthcare Director Dr Sandeep Buddhiraja and Union Jal Shakti Ministry Joint Secretary Subodh Yadav.
“The Delhi government exaggerated the oxygen requirement for the city by more than four times during the April 25-May 10 period, at the peak of the second COVID wave,” the report said, adding that supply of excess oxygen to Delhi could have triggered a crisis in its supply to 12 states with the high caseload.
“There was a gross discrepancy (about four times) in the actual oxygen consumption claimed by the Delhi government (1,140MT) as it was about four times higher than the calculated consumption as per the formula based on bed capacity (289 MT),” said an interim report of the oxygen audit panel appointed by the Supreme Court.
Responding to the panel report, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted saying, “My fault was that I fought for the breath of 2 crore people. When you were [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] busy campaigning for election, I was burning the midnight oil to arrange oxygen. People have lost their relatives due to oxygen shortage. Please don’t lie, they are feeling bad.”
The BJP soon jumped into the issue and targeted the AAP-led Delhi government. Party spokesperson Sambit Patra cited the report to note that Delhi’s requirement was 351 MT of medical oxygen even if the panel went by the Delhi government’s formula, while it was 289 MT according to the Central government’s estimate. He further said that only 209 MT was utilised while Kejriwal projected a requirement of 1,140 MT.
Reacting to allegations levelled by the BJP, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia denied the existence of any report by the Supreme Court-appointed Oxygen Audit Committee. “There is no such report. We have spoken to the members of the Oxygen Audit Committee formed by the Supreme Court. They said they have not signed or approved any such report,” he said in a press conference on Friday
Coming to the panel report, it said that the average consumption of oxygen in Delhi was between 284 to 372 MT, and added that “the excess supply of oxygen affected other states in need of oxygen”. It further stated that four Delhi hospitals claimed high consumption of oxygen with fewer beds.
Making a number of recommendations in its 163-page report submitted to the top court, the interim report also said that certain hospitals projected extremely high demand but recorded negative consumption. It noted that four hospitals—Singhal Hospital, Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital, ESIC Model Hospital and Liferay Hospital—had “claimed extremely high oxygen consumption with a very few beds and the claims appeared to be erroneous, leading to extremely skewed information and significantly higher oxygen requirement of the entire state of Delhi”.
The interim report said that tankers in Delhi were not able to offload oxygen and were lying idle as oxygen tanks in various hospitals were completely filled. “In this regard, a complaint has been received from M/S Goel Gases that their tanker has been parked at LNJP hospital and could not offload oxygen for many hours, leading to breakdown in supply chain. Similar instances have been observed at New Delhi,” it added.