HC directs meeting b/w govt, hosps and suppliers over O2

New Delhi: As the Delhi High Court continued to handhold the Delhi government and the Centre's coordination to ensure adequate supply of medical oxygen to the Capital on Monday, the discussions in court revealed that the re-allocation of suppliers by the Centre was now the key roadblock resulting in hospitals here choking for lack of oxygen.

While Delhi was initially getting the majority of its oxygen supply from INOX, the increased allocation led to the Centre reducing the amount coming from this supplier and compensating that amount from other suppliers who are too far away.

And as the Delhi government and the Centre patted each other on the back for full efforts to arrange tankers to make sure the far-away supplies reach the city, hospitals said that they would prefer if the Delhi government removed itself from the supply chain because INOX, which used to supply to more hospitals earlier is now being forced to supply to just select hospitals because of reduced allocation to Delhi.

Moreover, because other suppliers and the Delhi government are currently short on tankers, INOX has taken up the role of transporting oxygen from third-party suppliers to the Capital, which has resulted in their tankers being held up in other states and being diverted.

On being asked by Justice Sanghi to answer the question of transportation of oxygen to the Capital, Jain, for INOX, told the court, "We are more than willing to take on this national service. After the order, we have immediately allocated four tankers in Bhiwadi...government of Rajasthan has seized those tankers. They were moving towards Panipat and without the tankers we will not be able to supply. The oxygen that we were transporting to Delhi is now being transported to UP. I request for nobody to seize our tankers".

On this, a division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli, stated, "We hope and expect Rajasthan to honour the order passed by Centre and this Court. Intervention in the matter of supply of oxygen would tantamount to endangering hundreds of human lives. Serves no purpose to anyone to obstruct".

Jain further pleaded to the Delhi government to designate other suppliers to step up and help in transporting oxygen to hospitals. "If they were earlier supplying to Delhi. Why are you reducing the oxygen from 105 mt to 85 mt... why are they being stopped in the way," the court said.

On this, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted, "We would take cognisance of the same. We will provide them green corridors".

"We had passed allocation orders and mapping orders...Why are they not being done?...when they are being allocated, tankers are being stopped" Justice Sanghi shot back.

Appearing for INOX, advocate Rajiv Nayar argued, "This is like a cross fire between two governments. I have been asked to supply oxygen to particular hospitals and now I have been asked to forget about some and exclusively supply oxygen to particular hospitals...if I am being asked to supply to 17 hospitals and not 28 hospitals, who would take care of the other 28 hospitals?..."

Meanwhile, senior advocate Rahul Mehra, on behalf of Delhi government, while referring to a letter by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to Sajjan Jindal for procurement of cryogenic tankers, told the court that if the request is allowed, then the state would firstly take permission from the Central government. On this, SG Mehta said, "If every state starts procuring oxygen privately, then there would be lack of oxygen nationally".

"The problem is not of oxygen, but for transporting of oxygen. If oxygen is lying somewhere, we would request Central govt to supply the same to us whenever required," Mehra said.

Following this, advocate Sachin Datta, appearing for Jaipur Golden Hospital, told the court that the methodology adopted by the Delhi government is creating a problem rather than providing a solution.

The division bench further directed the hospitals, Delhi government and the oxygen suppliers to conduct a meeting on priority basis at 5 pm on Monday to discuss the modalities and issues in oxygen supply to Delhi hospitals.