April 23, 2021: Amid the ongoing second wave of the COVID-19 cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday held a meeting with oxygen manufacturers in the country via video conference amid concerns expressed by some states that the supply of the life-saving gas is inadequate.

Participants of the meeting included Reliance Industries Limited Chairman Mukesh Ambani, MD of Air Water Jamshedpur Noriyo Shibuya, Naveen Jindal of Jindal Steel and Power, Rajesh Kumar Sharaf (NOL), M Banerjee of LINDE, Sajjan Jindal of JSW, SAIL’ Chairperson Soma Mondal, Dilip Oommen (AMNS) and Siddharth Jain (INOX).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held the 4th review of scenario on Oxygen in the last one week. Earlier ones were held on April 16, 17 and April 22.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra held a meeting with chief ministers of states with high burden of coronavirus cases.

PM Modi urged all states to work together and coordinate with one-another to fulfil requirements relating to medicines and oxygen. He urged the states to check hoarding and black marketing of oxygen and medicines. The PM said that every state should ensure that no oxygen tanker, whether it is meant for any state, is stopped or gets stranded.

The Prime Minister urged the states to set up a high-level co-ordination committee to carry oxygen to different hospitals of the state. This Coordination Committee should ensure that as soon as there is allotment of oxygen from the centre, it can deliver oxygen as per requirement in different hospitals of the state immediately.

PM informed the Chief Ministers that yesterday he chaired a meeting on oxygen supply and will be attending one today to discuss all the options for increasing the oxygen supply.