1n A quick thread on Oxygen supply. We produce a huge amount of oxygen in this country - enough for both the COVID surge and Industry. The problem is the oxygen supply is co-located with steel plants in Bihar-Jharkhand (Tatas), Odisha & Bellary (Jindals). The problem is a

2n shortage of transport and supply infrastructure- large tanks to carry liquefied oxygen (LOX)outside the production-consumption triangle. While the production may be enough for both, the transportation & storage infrastructure is not. That’s why Industry needs to be shut/scaled

3n down and compensated for losses, while using their transport infrastructure for supplying LOX to tier 1 & 2 distribution hubs. That’s the big failing in the response so far - the transport and storage. Second failure is that plans to build oxygen production plants in tier 2

4n cities & major rural hospitals as far back as august 2020 were never implemented. This in-spite of the fact these turnkey plug & play plants cost just ₹ 20 crore per plant. The current crisis is because of precisely these two failure points - requisitioning oxygen without

5n the associated transport and storage & failing to put up the redundancy oxygen generation plants since mid 2020. Courts and continuing central government mismanagement aren’t exactly helping because they’re passing unimplementable orders.

6n There’s no way GoI can evade responsibility on this one.