Nagpur: City police chief Amitesh Kumar, referring to an earlier order by the district collector Ravindra Thakare, said that oxygen cylinders can only be supplied to the Covid hospitals and such facilities from the production and refilling plants.
The CP has also appealed to citizens or any institutions, other than the Covid hospitals and such facilities, to refrain from hoarding cylinders at homes, even for patients, as it may attract penal action.
Apart from black-marketeers of Remdesivir, the top cop has issued warning against malpractices in getting oxygen cylinders which too are in short supply due to high demand across the city. Sources said Kumar had to intervene after learning about individuals thronging the oxygen production and refilling plants from where filled cylinders were being sold for Rs290.
“We had to deploy security at six oxygen production and re-filling plants to ensure smooth distribution and stop malpractices,” said Kumar and added, “The collector’s order clearly stated that the oxygen plants and their distributors are supposed to supply to Covid hospitals directly as per their allotted quota from the office of the district administration.”
In the meanwhile, it’s learnt Union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari has initiated an effort to ensure 2,000 oxygen concentrators are provided under corporate social responsibility (CSR) from Vishakhapatnam.
Gadkari’s initiative also includes arranging two tankers of 20-tonne capacity each for ferrying around 40 tonne of liquid oxygen from Bhilai steel plant.
The minister also arranged around 1,000 empty cylinders by taking up the issue with another industrialist.