Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd has started supplying oxygen to Maharashtra from the company’s refinery in Jamnagar to help the state in its fight against the coronavirus.
India is reeling under the second wave of coronavirus cases with Maharashtra being the worst-hit state, consistently contributing the highest number of cases. Out of 2,00,739 new COVID-19 cases reported in the country in the preceding 24 hours as on Thursday morning, Maharashtra contributed 58,952 cases. Mumbai, Pune and Thane are amongst the worst affected districts in the state.
Reliance has started supplying oxygen from its Jamnagar refinery to Maharashtra at no cost, news agency Bloomberg quoted a company official as saying. The company is diverting oxygen streams meant for its petroleum coke gasification units after making it suitable for medical use.
On Wednesday, Maharashtra Urban Development and PWD Minister Eknath Shinde had tweeted that the Jamnagar plant will supply 100 metric tonnes of additional oxygen to Maharashtra.
Earlier this week, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had said that there was shortage of oxygen for COVID-19 affected patients and had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s help for supplying medical oxygen.
Meanwhile, the Centre on Thursday said India’s daily production capacity and stock is comfortably more than daily consumption of medical oxygen. It said steps are being taken to avoid panic regarding availability of medical oxygen.
