Supplying oxygen to a nation that is at war simultaneously in 30 states

The current oxygen crisis is further explained by the manufacturer 

India has increased its oxygen manufacturing capacity by 30% within a month. This is unfathomable. I don’t think it has happened globally. It’s a world record in itself.

qz.com /india/2006925/indias-largest-oxygen-maker-inox-explains-why-theres-a-shortage/
“Nobody is understanding the challenges of supplying oxygen to a nation that is at war” 

Niharika Sharma7-9 minutes

The second wave of Covid-19 in India quickly went from being a healthcare crisis to a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of patients gasped for breath in the absence of enough high-flow oxygen, which is an effective treatment for the disease.

For more than a month now, the oxygen crisis in the country has been a tug-of-war between the Narendra Modi government, state governments, hospitals, and oxygen manufacturers. In several areas, individuals have been left to run from pillar to post in search of oxygen cylinders for their family and friends.

All stakeholders have their own reasons for why Indian doctors still don’t have enough supply of the essential gas to treat their patients.

Quartz spoke to Siddharth Jain, director of INOX Air Products, the largest manufacturer of liquid oxygen in India, to understand the perspective of the producers. Jain believes that it is wrong to put the onus on oxygen makers as they are doing their best. “We are trying, nobody is understanding the logistical challenges in supplying oxygen to a nation that is at war simultaneously in 30 states. It’s a Herculean task,” he said.

Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

By when will India have enough oxygen for its Covid-19 patients?

Oxygen consumption is directly proportional to the number of cases. The pre-pandemic requirement for medical oxygen in India was about 700 tons a day. In wave one, the demand went up about 3,000 tons a day and in wave two, it’s now 8,000 tons a day.

At present, we have enough oxygen to maintain the current number of cases. All I can hope is that enough states announce lockdowns and the number of cases starts coming down. But if we start witnessing cases around 600,000-800,000 a day, we will be in a tough spot.

Do you think India could not have anticipated this spike in Covid-19 cases and no preparation would have been enough?

Absolutely… Why cases spike in this manner is beyond me. I don’t think any country would have been prepared for this kind of acceleration (in Covid-19 cases), which is currently the world’s highest.

All I can say is from an infrastructure perspective, we are scaling up. India has increased its oxygen manufacturing capacity by 30% within a month. This is unfathomable. I don’t think it has happened globally. It’s a world record in itself. The effort has been so enormous, however, increasing the capacity of manufacturing is not the same as getting it to the patient.

Siddharth Jain, director at INOX Air Products.

What logistical challenges are you facing?

When you manufacture oxygen in a liquid form, it looks like water. But it’s at minus 183 degrees centigrade and it’s stored in specialised containers. There are only 1,170 cryogenic transportation tankers available in India to move liquid oxygen. Out of those INOX has 320.

India has only 70 oxygen plants and these 1,170 containers were moving the entire production of oxygen. Earlier, out of 100 tankers that we would manufacture only 15 were going to medical, and 85 were going to industry. So all our plants are located in areas very close to industry, and not in the most densely populated areas where there are hospitals.

But now, there is a requirement for oxygen everywhere. So we needed to transport these tankers to the entire country.

Tell us more about the recent production ramp-up at your plants.

We have set up a new plant and also made investments in technological innovation inside our existing plants to increase their capacities. We have also reduced the capacity of some other gases that we make, such as nitrogen and argon, and are using those capacities to increase oxygen production.

Which states are you now supplying oxygen to? What are the key challenges in the process?

The three largest consumers of oxygen right now are Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh. We are not facing many challenges in Maharashtra and Gujarat because not only are they the largest consumers but they’re the largest manufacturers as well.

However, we are facing problems in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and Himachal Pradesh. Since there’s no industrial activity in north India, the region manufactures only 10% of India’s oxygen. So the production is very small but the demand right now is huge given the number of Covid-19 cases.

There are similar issues with the eastern and southern parts of the country, too, because most of the oxygen production capacity is in central India.

You have earlier said that the Delhi government is the only one complaining about supply issues. What happened with them?

There are only 70 plants that manufacture oxygen in India. Now, what is the job of the union government? It is to tell manufacturers to produce a certain amount of oxygen and then they formed a committee to approve the oxygen demand by the states. There was a chart that was made for each state with a name and an allocation volume.

However, it is not the union government’s job to pick up the oxygen and deliver it to end locations. It is not their job to go to Odisha, pick up the oxygen and come to Mumbai and pour it in a tank. What do the states exist for? What is their job? It is the job of the state to go and organise the logistics and go and get the allocated product.

Are you suggesting that Delhi wasn’t organising the logistics and was just complaining?

Yes, absolutely. It was only later, after a lot of pressure was put on them, they started moving it.

What could have been done to avoid the current situation?

Maybe the question is, why did we need that oxygen? Could we have done something to not require that oxygen at all?

I think it’s a bit unfair to the oxygen manufacturers…Are you aware in Delhi, they’re refusing patients into hospitals? Why are hospitals not taking patients? Does the hospital have no duty to organise the oxygen themselves? Are they allowed to shut gates for their patients?

But what can a hospital do if it has a shortage of essential medical supplies?

So where does the oxygen guy get it instantly? How do you create a supply chain with 10 times more than the normal demand in a two-week period?

Let us assume petrol is available in only 70 places in India. But cars are all over India. Now, tell me if the number of cars has increased 10 times overnight and they all want petrol, how would you get the petrol there?

Tell me, does a hospital today have the ability to bring more doctors overnight if the patients double? Take any hospital, and overnight, a 200-bed hospital cannot become an 800-bed hospital. But if the need arises, will it say no, we don’t have the doctors. We don’t have nurses and doctors. No. You will have to do it. It’s your duty.

We are trying, nobody is understanding the logistical challenges in supplying oxygen to a nation that is at war simultaneously in 30 states (India has 28 states and eight union territories). It’s a herculean task.

You are suggesting that it is wrong to blame the oxygen manufacturers?

Yes.

Some experts have said that India should implement a nationwide lockdown. Do you think that will help the oxygen manufacturers?

I certainly think it will help…I think most states are already under lockdown… At this point what we really need is to break the transmission chain. Come what may.

Blaming Modi vs Facts. Excellent Gulf News article

Narendra Modi gets blamed for everything that happens in India. If he locks down for Covid, he will be attacked for doing it, if he does not impose a lock down, he will accused of being a murder. The leftist ecosystem will cry at the top of the voices from across the world with supporting articles in American publications which are supposed authenticate it. 

The current covid surge in India is the direct result of the incompetence of a few state governments that this very ecosystem supports. But of course, Modi is responsible. Here is an article giving out the facts -

gulfnews.com /opinion/op-eds/covid-19-second-wave-and-india--the-questions-and-answers-1.79153360

COVID-19 second wave and India — the questions and answers

Akhilesh Mishra, Special to Gulf News11-14 minutes 5/12/2021

A medical worker in personal protective equipment (PPE) plays with a child of a woman recovering inside a quarantine centre for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients amidst the spread of the disease at an indoor sports complex in New Delhi, India. Image Credit: Reuters

As the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic rages through India, several questions have been asked of the Indian government and the way it has handled the upsurge. In an admittedly difficult situation, has the government been found wanting or has it mobilised all the resources available at its disposal to deal with situation? Let’s explore some of the issues.

Did India fail to anticipate second wave?

The basis of this question lies in the fact that between January 1, 2021 and March 10, 2021, India was averaging less than 20,000 new cases a day and for a significant period, this number had dropped to around just 10,000. Almost every other country had faced a second wave between October and December 2020 while India, after the first wave peak, seemed to have escaped the second wave. So much so, that many domestic ‘experts’ now castigating the government had written multiple articles during the first part of this year on why India will not have a second wave and thus India should let go off the remaining restrictions it had — like mask mandate and reopen schools and colleges. In the international media, the BBC ran an article on 15 February 2021, titled “Is the epidemic finally coming to an end in India?” The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and many others were similarly part befuddled and part reporting on India’s seeming escape from a second wave.

But the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not complacent. Between January and February, when the numbers were at the lowest, the central government issued 17 advisories to various state governments to not let their guard down, to continue to test aggressively, to ramp up health infrastructure and to be prepared for all eventualities. On 17 March, when the daily cases were still in the 20,000 range, Prime Minister Modi himself held a detailed meeting with all Chief Ministers were he explicitly advised them to be on constant vigil, to strictly enforce social distancing and mask mandate, to retrain health officials and reinvigorate administration protocols in case they had become jaded.

So, what happened? It would seem that many of the state administrations did go lax, especially the states where the second wave seems to have originated — Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Karnataka. By the time they started putting their acts together, the second wave was in full steam!

But why hold elections in the middle of pandemic?

Holding elections on due time is a constitutional requirement as assemblies are mandated to meet once every six months. Amending the constitution to have kept the assemblies of these five states — Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry — in suspended animation and under central rule, would have been a recipe of disaster and completely undemocratic. World over, elections have been held during the pandemic. India too held the Bihar elections in November 2020 without much ado.

The real question is, could big electoral rallies have been avoided? The BJP had made this exact proposal to the Election Commission of India before Bihar elections — that put off physical rallies and let there be only virtual campaigning. Every other political party strongly opposed this move. Their plea was the BJP is better organised hence they will have advantage in virtual world and therefore level playing field will not be there. In absence of consensus, the Election Commission could obviously not force a decision and the existing systems continued.

Every political party thus carried on with physical rallies in the five states that went to polls. Massive road shows were organised in Kerala by Rahul Gandhi. Mamata Banerjee held her mega rallies in West Bengal. The BJP did the rallies where it was contesting.

But there were no elections in Maharashtra or Chhattisgarh or Delhi or Punjab where the numbers started rising dramatically by end March. Therefore, the argument that election rallies are the culprit is not backed by data.

What about Kumbh in Haridwar?

Kumbh is very revered religious gathering in India. Its date and time are decided by saints and not governments. As the COVID cases had dropped in January and February, a conditional go-ahead, on the dates proposed, was given. Very strict protocols for entry, testing, quarantine, and other medical protocols were enforced during the gathering. When the Kumbh began on 1 April, India was reporting 72,000 cases. Out of this, six states alone — Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Punjab — contributed over 76% of the cases. None of these had anything to with the Kumbh. Uttarakhand on 1 April had 293 cases, on 8 April had 1,100 cases. However, as the pandemic surged all over the country, Prime Minister Modi himself intervened and requested the seers to end the gathering before due date and which they did.

India’s vaccination strategy — is it right?

India has given emergency use approval to two domestically manufactured vaccines — Covidshield and Covaxin. Out of this, Covaxin is totally indigenous, under a special programme sanctioned by Prime Minister Modi, where the government medical body ICMR partnered with Bharat Biotech to develop and deploy the vaccine in record time. Despite a malicious campaign launched against Covaxin, unfortunately by very responsible politicians, India formally launched the vaccination drive on 16 January 2021.

It was designed in conformity with medical opinion and WHO recommendations — to reduce mortality among the most vulnerable and then progressively move forward. Accordingly, vaccination of health care workers started on 16 January; on 2 February front-line workers became eligible; from 1st Mach all above 60 years and those above 45 years with comorbidities became eligible; from 1 April everyone above 45 became eligible and from 1 May all above 18 are eligible. So far India, has vaccinated 173 million people, the fastest pace in the world. It is available free of cost to all above 45 and to even those between the age group of 18-44 through the central government channel.

Other vaccines, which have been approved by drug regulators in USA, UK and Europe and the Russian Sputnik vaccine have also been given authorisation and many of them are in the process of arriving in India.

A question is asked as to why did India export vaccines before it vaccinated the domestic population? As on 11 May 2021, India has exported a total of 66.3698 million vaccine doses to foreign countries. At the same time, about three times as many vaccine doses have been administered within India.

There were contractual obligations for the manufacturers to supply vaccines to many countries, especially from where raw materials were sourced. In addition, it has been the time-tested tradition of India to stand up for the entire humanity in times of need. As US President and the French President both recently affirmed, when the world was in need last year, India helped the world with medicines and other supplies. When India is now in need of help, the world is returning the gesture of goodwill.

But why Build Central Vista during a pandemic?

After the great depression, US President Roosevelt was asked why was he investing so much in building new infrastructure, including a complete revamp of Washington DC, when the money could be used elsewhere? His answer is classical governance speak. Infrastructure investment sparks a virtuous cycle of economic recovery — jobs for semi-skilled and unskilled labour, demand generation for the entire manufacturing and core sector and a surge in allied services and hospitality sector. After a year of lockdown and depressed economic activity, the government of India is rightly spending money on productive economic activity, generating jobs, renewing urban landscape, spurring allied sectors and ensuring that those at the bottom of the pyramid are not further stressed by shutting down the only sector that can gainfully employ them. The central vista project is an already sanctioned project and it would make no sense to stop it and depress economic activity.

Has medical infrastructure shortage been fixed?

On 25 March 2020, India had 10,180 isolation beds. Today this number is more than 1.6 million. In the same period, ICU beds have increased from 2,168 to over 92,000.

India’s average daily medical oxygen requirement before the current peak was around 700MT. The requirement surged to almost 9,000 MT in a few days — a jump of almost 1,200%. The manufacturing challenge was immense. But even greater challenge was to meet the logistics of such surge in cylinders, and supply chain. Although there have been very painful days, but the worst phase is perhaps over as both the supply and logistics of delivery have started falling in place.

Production of drugs like Remdesivir have been ramped up from about 4 million a month to almost 10 million a month.

To augment manpower, the government has allowed, on expert advice, medical interns to be deployed with full safety protocol and payment of internship.

Prime Minister Modi has personally monitored the mobilisation of the armed forces for securing supplies and in setting up dedicated emergency medical facilities in multiple cities.

PM CARES fund has been deployed to install in situ oxygen generating plants in the biggest hospitals. Simultaneously, 551 new generating units, in addition to 162 already approved, have been sanctioned. DRDO is also using PM CARES fund to set up additional 500 medical oxygen plants. Thus, a total of more than 1,200 plants will come up. This will ensure each district in the country will shortly have medical oxygen generating facility. PM CARES fund has also been used to procure state of the art ventilators and over 150,000 DRDO developed SpO2 sensing based oxygen control system.

The free food and ration scheme, covering 800 million Indians, has been extended for another three months.

A new anti-COVID oral drug developed by DRDO — 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) has just been approved. It has proved very efficacious in fighting the infection.

What next?

India is battling the second wave with full dedication and resolve. The seven-day moving average of new cases has shown a dip after for the first time in weeks. As medical infrastructure is able to meet the demand, and new aggressive protocols of containment being put in place like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the expectation is that India shall get over this difficult period in the very near future. The unquestionable heroes of the battle that India has been waging against the second wave have been the medical professionals and the front-line workers. Their dedication and service shall hopefully soon bear fruits.

POLITICS OF THE PARLIAMENT BUILDING OF INDIA

  POLITICS OF THE PARLIAMENT BUILDING OF INDIA

Nowhere else in the world will someone try to trend the necessary work being done on the country's parliament building, as a home for Narendra Modi . Do they take the people of India to be such fools? Here is a thread explaining the issue

post by Sreevidya Balasubramaniam  @BaluSreevidya

https://twitter.com/BaluSreevidya/status/1339457464316489728?s=20

The political culture of our country is becoming increasingly toxic. Never before have we seen such a binary situation where the opposition parties believe their only job is to oppose everything the government does. This thread exposes them.

It does not matter if the issue is:

~ for the common good ~ something they themselves had planned ~ affecting security and safety of our country or people Latest in this hall of shame is the opposition to the new Parliament building which @narendramodi   did bhumi puja this week.

I am analysing this issue from three major angles. 1. Why a new Parliament building? 2. What is the politics around this? 3. What does this mean to Indian polity? For my first and second angles, I will share excerpts from three stalwarts in their discussion in Kolahala TV.

They are, Padmashri TK Vishwanathan (Retd Gen Secretary of Parliamentary A), Sri K. Srinivasan , Retd Director (Reporting), and Sri R Rajagopalan, senior journalist who has reported from the Parliament for over 40 years. Why the new building? See the shocking reasons below.

1. Health & Safety: The current building is very old, unsafe and used a. IIT Roorkee's study reveals that the building will not withstand an earthquake magnitude of just 6 RS b. The building does not have a fire clearance certificate. The fire department refused to certify.

During UPA, the kitchen was moved to adjacent building as the 50 gas bottles were ticking time bombs in the building c. When it rains outside, slabs keep falling inside. Dust fell from the roof on Late PV Narasimha Rao when he was replying to a member when Rajiv Gandhi was PM.

A net was placed below the ceiling to stop big pieces of slab from falling. On the II floor, slabs fall often. Few years ago, big part of the ceiling fell near Room 62 d. There is dangerous gas emanating from the sewage under RS and in other places, and that gives a foul smell.

Poisonous gases circulate in the chambers and at least two leaders have swooned due to this. You will be shocked to know that one was Sonia Gandhi, who is now opposing the new building. The other was Najma Heptulla

e. There are wires hanging everywhere (II floor especially) - short circuit risk is very high especially in hot summer when the temperature hits 52 degrees C. The entire wiring is a century old and it poses serious risk of fire from short circuit any time

f. Third floor has very narrow pathways. Once

@nsitharaman

's clothes got caught in one of the cupboards on the way and the cupboard fell. She could have been seriously harmed. g. Kitchen is full of cockroaches, spiders, and rats. Cats and dogs roam many parts of the building

Monkeys visit the third floor often. Once a cat bit DMK MP Vetriselvan. It's like a zoo. h. Mulayam S Yadav once fell in the building tripping on a fallen brick i. Toilets in very unhygienic conditions j. Speaker's chamber smells foul

k. When Bush visited, his security quoted IIT Roorkee's report to advise that Indian Parliament building was unsafe - a reason why India does not invite foreign delegates there. We help other countries build their Parliament houses, but our own is in very shabby condition.

2. Space - People in the parliament - MPs, staff, and visitors have increased significantly in the last 100 years. a. Staff are bout 6500, incl security. MPs, their staff will be another 1500 b. MPs sit cramped up, and no new MPs could walk in without tripping on the other

d. The building was not designed to withstand so much stress for 93 years from the increased footfalls e. Parliament is growing with more MPs by 2026, and the space is just not enough f. All MPs don't have their own rooms let alone a meeting place for visitors

3. Preservation of information and knowledge a. Parliament is a paper-less office now. So, all information is stored in computers. A short circuit or electrical outage could cause loss of data and information. This is a risk for the country

4. Maintenance a. We spend a lot of money - crores - on maintaining the current building. Despite that, the risks remain b. In order to refurbish this building, the contractors need it vacant for 2 full years - this is not a remote possibility

What is the politics about this? We see how Congress goes 180 degrees on their own promises. Parliament building debate is another such shame for them. Why? I quote Sri @RAJAGOPALAN1951  

Congress initiated, participated in, and approved a new building during their tenure.

1. Chintamani Panigrahi, a CONGRESS leader and MoS Home Affairs in 1985, wrote to the Sel. Comm on the need to have a new building, quoting the 'scars' on the building 2. Meira Kumar, Congress Speaker continuously sought reports on the condition of the building

K Srinivasan, the then Director (Reporting) had sent 56 such reports after personal inspection of the building. Meira Kumar refused the use of kitchen, for fear of fire. Her successor, Sumitra Mahajan had also progressed the cause of new building

3. In 2012 July, Radhey Shyam, Officer on Special Duty had written a detailed letter to Union Minister of Housing and Urban affairs on behalf of Meira Kumar asking permission for CPWD to undertake feasibility studies for the new building

4. Another letter was written to PM Manmohan Singh by Meria Kumar stating the same. 5. It was during this time, that Congress requested environmental clearance for a new building. The CONGRESS minister who gave a green signal to this was none other than Jairam Ramesh.

6. This issue was discussed and debated in the Parliament in 2019. Congress actively participated and agreed to a new building. Together, they approved 971cr towards this. This is not a huge amount due to the economies of scale - this building is part of the Rs 20,000-crore...

...Central Vista project, which aims to build and refurbish the government buildings on the 13.4-km Rajpath. Congress heartily agreed to all this. Now the same Congress has gone 180 degree on this and is opposing this move. Tamil media has picked it up as an issue.

The MSM which is largely owned by the DMK should not be opposing this as MK built another assembly building without such risks to the existing building. I understand that many in TN media may not even have seen the Parliamentary building.

But then they should at least ask senior journalists like

@RAJAGOPALAN1951

before raising squabbles. Most interesting float in TN today is Kamal Haasan. He is someone with an unbridled tongue with no scruples. He is just asking questions in the air, without checking facts.

Seriously TN, do you want to have such politicians representing you? Pandemic has not been a deterrent to major activities that boost economic growth. A lot of govt projects keep going. I don't think Earthquakes, Fires, or Short Circuits wait for Corona to be over.

If Congress started this idea of new building, then why are they opposing this? This is the toxic culture I spoke about. Opposing anything because it's done by BJP. Don’t bother about facts. They are doing this in the hope that in time, people will slowly start feeling that BJP is onto a few wrong things.

A communist social conditioning by repetition technique. What does this mean to the Indian polity? If a society or system goes binary, the mightier force will eat away the weaker one. Congress is hoping that they can eat away the pro-nationalistic and transparent new culture of governance by constantly attacking it.

Congress is under delusion that the GOP of India is still mighty. This is where they are going wrong. With the information and factchecking on finger tips, more and more people adopt a position today. The fence sitters, the agnostics, the atheists, the hermits will all be compelled to take sides in this age of social media and alternative truth. This collective mind will decide in an organic process which is a mightier force and will isolate and weaken the other ones. I don't need to say which is which.