BBC has a habit of overlooking facts on the ground and it has been doing so consistently against India

The BBC story ‘A nightmare on repeat- India is running out of oxygen again’ holds the Union Government responsible for shortage of oxygen supply amidst surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.

Claims made by this report are counterfactual and ignore the facts on the ground. The report undermines war-footing measures taken by the Union and state governments to deal with the situation in the country.

Beginning with the ‘tragic’ death of patients at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the national capital, the report says that only after a desperate public plea from the Delhi Chief Minister and following an intervention from the High Court did the Indian central government provide a refill to the hospital.

Misconstruing the Delhi High Court’s warning against obstruction of oxygen supply as a warning to the Union Government, the BBC story makes a mockery of facts as the court warns against individuals who might have obstructed oxygen supply.

Replying to the Delhi state government’s plaint for the supply of 480 metric tonnes of oxygen for lack of which the system will collapse, the Delhi High Court had asked the state government to give it one instance of who was obstructing the oxygen supply and had warned ‘we will hang that man’ and not spare anyone.’

Far from putting the blame on the Union government, the court also asked the state government to inform the centre along-with the court about such officials of the local administration so that it could take action against them.

Thus, efforts by the Union government to increase the supply of oxygen and ensure its distribution across the country precede the High Court or Supreme Court’s ruling in the matter.

Moreover, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has made it clear that Delhi has been allotted more than the oxygen quota it had asked for and that it is the Arvind Kejriwal government’s responsibility to rationalise and plan for it.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is himself monitoring and reviewing the situation with regard to oxygen supply across the country. Against the present demand from 20 states of 6,785 MT/ day of Liquid Medical Oxygen, the Government of India has from April 21, allocated 6,822 MT/ day to these states.

The PMO had also noted that in the last few days, availability of Liquid Medical Oxygen has been increased by about 3,300 MT/ day with contributions from private and public steel plants, industries, oxygen manufacturers as well as through prohibition of supply of oxygen for non-essential industries.

Earlier, Prime Minister Modi had urged pharmaceutical companies to increase seamless supply of life-saving medicines and assured all support from the government to facilitate logistics and transport whenever required.

Also, the report wrongly dubbed the oxygen shortfall as a symptom rather than the cause of the crisis. It accuses the government on failing to expand the vaccination drive quickly enough.

Against the claims made in the report, on the vaccination front, India had become the fastest country in the world to administer 100 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

According to official data released on Saturday evening, India achieved the feat in 85 days whereas the US took 89 days and China reached the milestone in 102 days.

By singling out the success story of the southern state of Kerala of having surplus oxygen whereas Maharashtra or Delhi lacking oxygen supply, the report after painting a false picture of Centre vs. states, now falsely presents an intense competition among states for ensuring enough oxygen supply in their respective territories.

Despite acknowledging that the Modi government has started an ‘Oxygen Express’ and that the Indian Air Force has been pressed into action for airlifting oxygen from military bases and the government importing 50,000 metric tonnes of liquid oxygen, the BBC report’s claim that transporting oxygen has become a huge logistical challenge is contradictory.