Delhi demanded four times more oxygen than it required during 2nd COVID wave: Supreme Court panel

The report further stated that the supply of excess oxygen to Delhi could have triggered a crisis in its supply to 12 high caseload states. The interim audit report also named four Delhi hospitals - Singhal Hospital, Aruna Asif Ali Hospital, ESIC Model Hospital and Liferay Hospital - that claimed high consumption of oxygen.

NEW DELHI: Delhi government exaggerated the oxygen requirement for the city by more than four times between April 25 and May 10 during the second wave of COVID-19, a Supreme Court-appointed audit panel has said in its interim audit report that emerged on Friday.

"The Delhi government's claim of 1,140 Metric Tonnes of Oxygen was four times the calculated consumption as per bed formula, which was 289 MT only," an interim audit report said. 

The report further stated that the supply of excess oxygen to Delhi could have triggered a crisis in its supply to 12 high COVID caseload states. The interim audit report also named four Delhi hospitals - Singhal Hospital, Aruna Asif Ali Hospital, ESIC Model Hospital and Liferay Hospital – that claimed high consumption of oxygen during that period.

The report said that these 4 hospitals had claimed, "extremely high oxygen consumption with few beds and claims appeared to be erroneous, leading to extremely skewed info and significantly higher oxygen requirement."

The Supreme Court oxygen audit team, which submitted its report before the top court, was asked to study the oxygen demand and supply requirement for Delhi and other states in the wake of severe Oxygen crisis in several states during the peak of Coronavirus, recently submitted its report to the top court.

Delhi suffered a severe oxygen crisis in April-May as cases rose to an all-time high. Several hospitals had sent out SOS messages about depleting oxygen supplies at their medical facilities and some hospitals had even lost patients due to the crisis situation.

Taking cognizance of the matter, the Delhi High Court had asked the Centre as to why Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra were given more oxygen than they asked for while Delhi’s allocation was not increased as per the request of the AAP government.

On May 5, during the peak of the second wave of novel coronavirus infections, a Justice DY Chandrachud-led bench of the top court had directed the Centre to maintain oxygen supply of 700 MT to Delhi even as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had presented experts’ calculation pegging the need to be around 415 MT of LMO. The direction came after the Delhi government raised alarm over a shortage in oxygen supply.

“You will have to give 700 MT oxygen to Delhi,” a bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud and M R Shah had told the Centre.