National News

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh writes to Centre

With Oxygen supplies in the state depleting fast, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday sent another SOS letter to Union Health and Family Welfare

Sentinel Digital Desk

With Oxygen supplies in the state depleting fast, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday sent another SOS letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan, for the second time in two days, for urgent increase in allocation of quota. He also directed Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to pursue with the government of India for urgent supplies, given the serious situation, with patient load increasing due to influx from Delhi and other states, and pushing up demand for medical oxygen. He further asked the Chief Secretary to rush urgent supplies to Amritsar, where precious lives were lost on Saturday due to shortage of oxygen in a private hospital. Given the criticality of the situation, the Chief Minister has sought four-hourly reports from Principal Secretary Industries on the state's hospital-wise demand-supply situation of Oxygen. Sunday's letter to the Union Health Minister followed the Centre's failure to increase the allocation to Punjab as per the new allocation of LMO issued on Saturday, despite his plea for enhancement to at least 250 metric tonnes (MT) of LMO per day. (IANS)