GUWAHATI: Medical Oxygen Supply to Assam
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma formally received the Oxygen Express, carrying four containers of a total of 80 metric tonnes (MT) of medical oxygen at Inland Container Depot at Amingaon in Guwahati. The Oxygen Express, which started from Jharkhand, reached the state on Sunday.
Talking to the media at the site, Chief Minister Sarma expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allocating additional medical oxygen to the State through the Oxygen Express which would greatly help in meeting the increasing oxygen requirement in the State, primarily for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Chief Minister also thanked Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal for taking steps to bring the train.
Sarma also informed that from now onwards, the Oxygen Express would come twice a week to Assam delivering a total of 160 MT of oxygen to the State. Apart from fulfilling State's requirement, Assam would supply surplus Oxygen to the neighbouring states of Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Tripura, he said.
Chief Minister said that the State has a medical oxygen storage capacity of up to 800 litres.
Reflecting on the ongoing COVID vaccination drive in the State, the Chief Minister said that the State Government is making efforts to ramp up daily vaccination from the present 50,000 people to 1 lakh.
Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Samir Kumar Sinha and other officials of NF Railway, Container Corporation of India Ltd. etc were also present at the programme, a press release said.