Explained: Why Delhi’s ‘Oxygen Crisis’ Is More A Logistics Problem Than A Demand-Supply Issue

In early April, when Mumbai had around 92,000 active cases of Covid-19, the city to managed meet its requirement of medical oxygen with a supply of 275 metric tonnes (MT) per day. However Delhi, which currently has nearly the same number of active cases, has a dramatically higher oxygen demand.

The Arvind Kejriwal government, that had earlier demanded 700 MT of oxygen per day from the centre, has now revised its need to over 900 MT per day.

Arguing before the Supreme Court on Tuesday (5 April ) in a related case, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that the Delhi government’s demand was more than the requirement worked out based on the Centre’s formula, and that Delhi could manage with around 500 MT of medical oxygen per day. The apex court, however, directed the Centre to meet Delhi’s demand of 700 MT of oxygen.

While the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi claims that it is facing shortage of medical oxygen due to inadequate allocation and supply by the Centre, much of its current problems are of its own making.

The problem that Delhi is currently facing is not so much due to a demand-supply imbalance, but rather a result of the state government’s mismanagement of supply chain of oxygen and its distribution within Delhi, among other failings.

Cryogenic tankers, which can maintain a temperature of -180 degrees, are required to move liquid medical oxygen.

As Covid-19 cases started rising in the country in April, states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, which do not produce medical oxygen in significant quantities, rushed to acquire cryogenic tankers available in the market while the Delhi government limited its effort to demanding extra allocation from medical oxygen the Centre.

India had around 1,200 cryogenic tankers before Covid-19 hit. At least 500 nitrogen and argon containers have now been converted to carry oxygen, and a significant number of cryogenic tankers have also been imported.

The Kejriwal government, reports say, started looking for cryogenic tankers only in mid-April. By this time almost all such tankers available in the market had already been acquired. As a result, the state has a limited fleet of cryogenic tanker transports, some of which have been provided by the Centre.

“Delhi kept its focus on demanding extra allocation from the Centre without giving much thought about the transportation bit,” KK Yadav, a transporter based in Haryana’s Faridabad, told the Hindustan Times.

The Delhi government had approached Yadav between April 17 and 19.

During the hearing in the Delhi High Court on the oxygen issue, Mehta had pointed out that all states including non-industrial ones, except Delhi, had made arrangements for converting existing tankers for storage of oxygen.

“Let the Delhi government take steps in this regard (make arrangements for cryogenic tanks)...in case the Cryogenic tanks are in short supply...they should not leave it entirely to the Central government to act in this regard,” the court said in its order.

“The problem is you think allocation is done so everything will be served at your doorstep. Why didn’t you look for tankers? Your political head has himself been an administrative officer,” the court added.

Much of the oxygen that Delhi and other northern states of India get comes from industrial centres in eastern and western India. Siddharth Jain, director of INOX Air Products, one of the many suppliers of oxygen to Delhi, says less than 10 per cent of India’s oxygen production happens in north India.

The oxygen producing centres near the eastern and western parts of India are between 1,200 to 1,500 kilometers away from Delhi. Moving oxygen over such long distances significantly increases the turnaround time of cryogenic containers. Given that the Delhi government has a limited fleet of these such tankers, the long turnaround time has caused problems for the state.

“We do not have enough tankers to carry supplies. Most of the plants are located in eastern India, apart from a couple in the west. This means long distances and a lot of turnaround time,” an executive of Kolkata-based Linde India, one of the largest producer of industrial gases, told The Indian Express.

Over the last few days, the Centre has pressed the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Railways into service to reduce the turnaround time of cryogenic tankers.

IAF’s transport fleet is being used to transport empty containers to production centres, where they are filled with medical oxygen, and special trains are being used to transport these containers to states where oxygen is needed.

Railways’ plan to help reduce the turnaround time was delayed by the Delhi government’s inability to provide tankers, a government official said.

Reduction in turnaround time has significantly eased Delhi’s logistics problems over the past few days, but the Kejriwal government has failed to ensure an orderly supply of medical oxygen to hospitals in the state.

When Covid cases in Delhi hit the roof around 20 April, the Delhi government had no hospital-wise plan for allocation of medical oxygen, which resulted in chaos. The Delhi government made little effort to ensure efficient distribution of oxygen within the state. Although hospitals had started sending SOS to the government on 18 April, a helpline for coordination with medical facilities was established days later.

It was only on 22 April that the state government came up with a rudimentary plan of allocating oxygen to every hospital, but it did not work.

On 27 April, by the time the situation in the national capital had worsened, the Delhi High Court cautioned the Delhi government to put its “house in order” .

“Delhi government has to pull up its socks on the issue of distribution of liquid oxygen to larger hospitals, but also supply of oxygen cylinders in nursing homes and smaller hospitals,” the court said, adding, “If you can't manage it, tell us. Then we will ask the Central government to take over. We can’t let people die.”

It was during this hearing that the Batra Hospital had informed the Delhi High Court that it lost 21 patients to COVID-19 as it ran out of oxygen.

It was only on 28 April that the Delhi government issued an order prescribing quantities of oxygen to be used by each hospital, Hindustan Times says.

The Delhi government also failed to put out the phone numbers or addresses of the 14 oxygen cylinder refillers, which resulted in SOS calls on social media and panic when there may not have been a shortage of oxygen.