DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand government on Thursday claimed that no one in the state has lost life due to scarcity of oxygen during the COVID era.
In a written response to the query by Virendra Kumar, the Congress MLA from Jhabrera, Uttarakhand health minister Dhan Singh Rawat stated, “No deaths have been reported in Uttarakhand state in COVID-19 times due to deficiency of oxygen.”
Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Yashpal Arya termed the reply as an attempt to cover up the truth.
“This is totally a misguided reply. We all witnessed the shortage of oxygen cylinders and deaths due to lack of availability of oxygen cylinders,” Arya said.
Meanwhile, Rawat also stated that Uttarakhand has a total of 465.55 metric tonnes of oxygen supply capacity of which 256.58 metric tonnes is the storage capacity and 208.97 metric tonnes is the generation capacity. He further stated that a total of 22,428 oxygen cylinders and 9,743 oxygen concentrators are available across the hill state.
The cylinders have a carrying capacity of 135.90 metric tonnes while concentrators can generate 126.10 metric tonnes of oxygen, Rawat said.
The health minister also put on record a reply that a total of 86 pressure swing adsorption plants have been established across the state government medical facilities. Of them, 85 are functional and one will be functional soon.
The reply stated that the state government also has a total of 10 liquid medical oxygen (LMO) tanks of which 9, with a carrying capacity of 120.68 metric tonnes, are functional and in use.
The state health minister in response to another query raised by Kumar stated that till June 7, 2022, a total of 7,693 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 infections across the state of Uttarakhand. According to the daily health bulletin by the state health department on June 16, 2022, total deaths due to COVID-19 stood at 276 this year.
The state government is providing Rs 50,000 compensation to the dependents and the families of those who have died of COVID-19 infection, the minister added.