Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday urged the Centre to enhance the daily quota of medical oxygen as the state is facing a critical situation of the supply due to surge in COVID-19 cases.
In a tweet, the Chief Minister said, "The situation of oxygen supply in Punjab is extremely critical due to rising COVID-19. I request Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan to urgently enhance daily quota and to ensure allotted Liquid Manufacturing Oxygen supplies are released to Punjab."
Earlier, Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said that the state has left with only 1.9 lakh doses of the vaccine due to the lesser supply of the vaccine from the union government. Out of this available stock, more than 1 lakh doses expected to be used today.
He said that the Punjab government has already appealed to the union government to regularise the supply of vaccines in the state as the trained staff and infrastructure provided by the Punjab government could vaccinate 3 lakh people daily, requiring 15 lakh doses every week.
He added that the health department had written a letter to the Union Ministry of Health on April 22 demanding 10 lakh doses of vaccine.
Replying to a query regarding the shortage of oxygen, he said that the plants of the Punjab government were running at full capacity while the central government had reduced the liquid oxygen quota of Punjab.
The state has recorded 76 deaths due to COVID-19 on Sunday and 7,014 new cases.
( With inputs from ANI )
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