Tamil Nadu O2 reserves might run out by May 8; Madras HC asks Centre to ramp up supply

The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the Centre to ensure that that adequate oxygen is supplied to Tamil Nadu by Friday to prevent O2 reserves from running out. A division bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy was hearing a suo moto plea on the COVID-19 situation in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. While the daily oxygen requirement of TN is 450 MT, the Centre's allocation made last week was 280 MT. While a consensus was reached in a meeting on May 2 to release 475 MT of oxygen on a daily basis.

While conceding that no state can demand all facilities for itself at the cost of others, the court noted that there has to be an equitable distribution of the available resources. The order stated, "The Union and the empowered committee should take immediate steps in such regard to ensure adequate supply of oxygen to the State of Tamil Nadu to meet the needs. This must be ensured by tomorrow, so that the emergency that the officials speak of – of the reserves supply running out by Saturday – does not happen. It is critical and it requires the attention of the highest offices so that lives are not lost for want of oxygen." 

The matter was adjourned to 2.15 pm on May 11 if not required by any untoward circumstances earlier.  At present, there are 1,28,311 active novel coronavirus cases in TN while 11,29,512 patients have recovered and 14,779 deaths have been reported. A total of 48,23,868 persons have been inoculated in Maharashtra till now, 15,56,920 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too. 

Here are some other directives in the HC order:

• The District Collectors will monitor and coordinate measures taken, facilities available, including the supply of oxygen and distribution of oxygen
• There must be no let-up in measures taken against the black-marketing of drugs
• The authorities should ensure that there is no dearth of oxygen in Puducherry over the next week or so
• The information on the availability of beds in Puducherry should be disseminated through the website or other media on a real-time basis
• The TN government can consider the possibility of rejuvenating two vaccine centres for the production of vaccines which shall supply them even to the neighbouring states