Fact Check: Cong claim on India's oxygen export surging over 700% amid COVID-19 debunked

Amid the scarcity of oxygen for the treatment of patients at a time when the nation is witnessing a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections across the country, a news media published a report alleging oxygen export rose has risen over 700% during the COVID-19 pandemic, raising questions on the policy of the Central government.

Press Information Bureau (PIB) fact check has debunked the report and stated that the annual export of medical oxygen was less than 0.4% and no export of medical oxygen is happening at the moment. Terming the report to be false, PIB Fact check stated that the industrial oxygen exports are being mistaken for Medical Oxygen based on which the report seems to have been published.

PIB fact check has also termed the social media post of Congress as false. The post claimed that the export of oxygen from India has increased by 734% between Jan 2020 & Jan 2021.

Government sources while speaking with ANI has stated that malicious propaganda is being spread that India had exported scarce medical oxygen during the pandemic year of 2020-21.

"Majority of these industrial oxygen exports were in December 20 and January 21 when medical oxygen consumption had reduced by half to 1418 MT/day from a peak of 2675 MT/day in September," the sources said to ANI.

From April 2020 to February 2021, India has exported 9,884 MT of Industrial Oxygen while only 12 MT of Medical Oxygen, the sources stated.

This revelation comes on a day when Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra too lashed out at the Centre for over the Oxygen crisis in the country. During an interview with ANI, Priyanka Gandhi stated that India produces 7,500 MT of oxygen per day, at the peak of the last wave the cumulative use of oxygen in hospitals across the nation was less than half this quantity per day.

"We produce enough oxygen, the government has simply not created the adequate logistics to supply it across India. It had the entire period between the first and the second wave to do this. It did nothing," she alleged.

"Why did it not make arrangements when a second wave was inevitable? The country is facing a shortage of oxygen because there was no strategy, this is the government's failure and bad planning," Priyanka Gandhi said.

"India's production capacity for oxygen is one of the largest in the world. Then why's there a shortage? You had 8-9 months (between first and second wave), your own Serosurveys indicated that a 2nd wave is imminent, you ignored it," she said.