Delhi Police on Friday seized 48 oxygen cylinders from a house in Dashrath Puri, south-west region of Delhi. Amid an acute shortage of medical oxygen across the country, a team of Delhi Police recovered 32 big and 16 small oxygen cylinders during raid.
Earlier on Wednesday, the District officials in southwest Delhi raided an oxygen refilling centre and recovered 70 cylinders.
The owner of the house, Anil Kumar has been arrested by the police. The owner was claiming to have a business of industrial oxygen but when the police asked for license the owner couldn’t produce a license for his business.
The accused were caught selling one small cylinder for Rs 12,500 after transferring oxygen from the bigger cylinders. However, the police will distribute the recovered cylinders to the needy on Saturday, following a court order allowing the same.
Amid reports of shortage of oxygen in the hospitals during the second wave of Covid across the country, the Defence Ministry on Friday decided to airlift 23 mobile oxygen generating plants from Germany.
Currently, the Covid second wave is crushing its already overburdened health infrastructure and frontline medical workers. Not only Delhi hospitals but hospitals across the county are running out of medical oxygen supplies. Over the past few days, several hospitals have flagged a crisis of oxygen supply, beds and medicines amid rising Covid cases.
Amid the spiralling crisis, states have been bickering with the centre or other states over the supply of oxygen, vaccine and medicines.
Twenty people died last night at the Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi due to shortage of medical oxygen. Amid the oxygen crisis confronting city hospitals, Delhi government has decided to maintain a buffer stock of oxygen cylinders and liquid medical oxygen for use in extremely critical situations.
Read Also: India to airlift over 20 oxygen generation plants from Germany
At 3,32,730, India’s daily infection total on Friday was higher than ever recorded anywhere in the world since the pandemic began last year. A record 348 people died of Covid-19 in Delhi on Friday, the highest since the pandemic broke out more than a year ago, and up from 306 on Thursday