Niti Aayog hails oxygen tracker, test & trace drive in Uttar Pradesh’s rural heartland

LUCKNOW: Niti Aayog has acknowledged the test-and-track drive launched by the UP government in rural areas to prevent spread of Covid-19. It has also commended the state for arranging medical oxygen to meet increased demand after the pandemic surge.
“A laudable model for oxygen transport & tracking! UP government has established oxygen hubs and developed a dashboard, OxyTracker, through which tankers can be tracked real-time. This allows quick and smart allocation of oxygen. Result-1000 MT O2 being lifted instead of 250MT before,” the government think tank tweeted on Thursday.
A government spokesperson said, the state had developed an OxyTracker on instructions of chief minister Yogi Adityanath to ensure smooth, timely and transparent supply of oxygen to government and private hospitals. The CM said, in the first wave hospitals did not need more than 300 tons of oxygen, which went up exponentially in the second wave.
Currently, the state is supplying more than 1,000 tons of oxygen to various parts of the state.
Niti Aayog also said, the house-to-house visits undertaken in a mammoth drive in over 90,000 villages to identify, isolate Covid patients and trace contacts should serve as a model for other states to replicate. “Such proactive test-trace-treat model is effective in tackling the surge,” it added.
The exercise has been undertaken in the aftermath of the panchayat polls after which concerns were raised about spread of the virus in rural areas.