CHANDIGARH: As the demand for oxygen has come down in the last week and for the first time on Sunday Chandigarh did not need oxygen supply from the Himachal-based plant.
Similarly, for Monday too, the UT has not placed any order for oxygen from the plant.
Sources in Chandigarh administration said the city has been allotted oxygen quota of 20 metric tonne (MT) a day by the central government, but in the last few days, city’s demand did not cross 10MT even.
The sources also confirmed that the plant in Himachal Pradesh, from where they have been getting oxygen alloted by the central government, has now started giving oxygen to the industries, which was earlier stopped due to supply to the hospitals and health centres.
“Besides Chandigarh, as the requirement of oxygen of the Punjab has also reduced considerably, the plant started giving oxygen to the industries.
If Chandigarh need very little oxygen, it is not financially viable to transport from Himachal.
Therefore UT administration is not ordering everyday these days,” an official said.
Moreover, UT administration has also withdrawn quota restrictions for private hospitals and now these private hospitals can take oxygen according to their requirement without any check over the supply on them.
Sources in the UT revealed that since the things have normalised, they are not checking oxygen supply agencies as well.
Earlier, the situation had turned so serious that the UT administration had to deploy cops to ensure transportation and supply of oxygen in the city.
Not only this, the administration had also appointed its staff at Himachal Pradesh based Barotiwala oxygen plant, oxygen plant in Chandigarh and refilling station at Derabassi round the clock to monitor the supply of oxygen.