Supervising everything: Centre to Supreme Court

NEW DELHI:  The Centre on Tuesday submitted its national plan for Covid-19 preparedness before the Supreme Court and explained how actively the government is supervising everything. It said that it is on a war footing to fight the pandemic. The submission lists the Central government’s plans for distribution of essential supplies and services. The Centre further stated that it is making efforts to procure oxygen from all available sources within India and also importing oxygen from other countries.

“The national plan, however, does not include microscopic details as to the day-to-day management of the issues arising out of different disasters,” the Centre said. It further stated that the production of Remdesivir and other Covid-19 drugs has been upped in light of their growing demand. In its 106-page affidavit, the Centre told the court that the national plan designedly keeps the said aspects of executive decision making open in order to enable the government’s statutory functionaries and all stakeholders take appropriate measures in dynamic and fast-developing situations.

Taking suo moto cognizance of issues arising out of the Covid- 19 outbreak, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to submit a national plan for production and distribution of oxygen, essential drugs, healthcare infrastructure and vaccines. In its affidavit, the Centre said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were constantly working to scale up the production and distribution of oxygen in the country.

“Steps such as giving industrial oxygen production plants license to produce medicalgrade liquid oxygen are being taken. The availability of oxygen tankers is also being increased,” the Centre said, adding that oxygen requirements in several states increased much faster than expected. “The sheer magnitude of this unprecedented surge itself brings with it certain inbuilt limitations in terms of available resources which need to be professionally augmented and utilised,” the affidavit submitted by the Centre said.