On Saturday, AIIMS director and chairman of the subgroup Dr Randeep Guleria said that a report by a group under the Supreme Court-appointed panel to audit medical oxygen use in Delhi is an interim document and not the final word, indicating that claims of a fourfold exaggeration in demand by the Capital were inaccurate.
The interim report has sparked a political spat between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to the report, there was a “significant discrepancy” in the recording of medical oxygen requirements by 183 Delhi hospitals, which requested 1,140MT versus the actual requirement of 209MT.
Dr Guleria said the controversy over exaggerated demand was unnecessary as the requirement of medical oxygen was dynamic in nature, adding that the report by the subgroup he heads was interim and people should wait for the final version. “The final report will cover all terms of references,” he told Hindustan Times. He added that the report only talked about how much oxygen was needed and how much was used by hospitals, which was dynamic at the time.
“I don’t think we could say that,” Dr. Guleria said. The report is invalid, according to the Delhi government, and its findings are incorrect. Even as he pleaded for an end to the political squabble and for everyone to work together, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday that the acute shortage of oxygen during Covid-19’s fourth wave in the national capital was real.
The panel is led by Dr. Guleria and consists of a subgroup. Subodh Yadav, a joint secretary in the Jal Shakti ministry, Dr. Sandeep Budhiraja from Max Healthcare, Bhupinder S Bhalla, principal secretary, home, Delhi government, and Sanjay Kumar Singh, explosives controller at the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization, are among the other members (PESO).
Two of the members — Dr Budhiraja and Bhalla — submitted contradictory notes on the procedure and details of the findings in the report’s annexures. Some members of the panel had not approved the report, according to an internal note written by Bhalla on Friday evening.
“It’s an interim report and it’s subjudice. It has been given to the court; we have submitted it as was required. It’s an ongoing process and it’s difficult to say what the final report will actually say,” Dr Guleria told. “Oxygen requirement and what was actually used has been shown and discrepancy has been there. It is not correct to say that it was less or more, because that is something which is dynamic,” he added.
“The matter is in the Supreme Court. We need to wait and see what the top court says about it. Undercounting of active cases and other factors need to be considered,” he told
Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta on Saturday demanded Kejriwal’s apology for “oxygen mismanagement” and said his government “exaggerated” consumption of the life-saving gas.
The report marks the latest chapter in a spat between the Centre and the Delhi government. The Delhi government’s position was that the Union government was not allocating it enough oxygen. The Centre’s position was that Delhi’s needs were overstated.
