Delhi CM livestreams PM Covid meet, seeks help with oxygen

New Delhi: Raising alarm that a "big tragedy" may happen due to oxygen shortage in hospitals during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said the Centre should ask Army to take over oxygen plants.

At a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 situation, Kejriwal requested him to direct chief ministers of all states to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to the national Capital.

"People are in major pain due to oxygen shortage. We fear a big tragedy may happen due to oxygen shortage and we will never be able to forgive ourselves. Despite being a CM, I am not able to help the people of Delhi. I request you with folded hands to direct all CMs to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to Delhi," he said during the meeting.

"We need a national plan to deal with the crisis. Central government should take over all oxygen plants through the Army and every tanker coming out of the oxygen plant should be accompanied by an Army escort vehicle," he said.

"We are thankful to the Central government that they increased our quota of oxygen but we have been trying for two days to get the oxygen supply. The oxygen supply scheduled to come to Delhi from Odisha and West Bengal should either be airlifted or brought through the 'Oxygen express' started by the Centre," he said.

The chief minister also objected to different rates being charged from state governments and the Centre for the COVID-19 vaccine, and said "one nation, one rate" policy should be followed.

"In a single country, why are we having two prices for the same thing. There should be one nation, one rate policy. The entire country should get vaccine at a similar rate. Everyone in the country should be entitled to vaccine, medicines and oxygen, without any dispute," he said.

The suggestions made by Kejriwal were shared in a live telecast from the meeting.

The Chief Minister's office later shared a statement saying, "the CM address was shared live because there has never been any instruction, written or verbal, from central govt that the said interaction could not be shared live.

There have been multiple occasions of similar interactions where matters of public importance which had no confidential information were shared live. However, if any inconvenience was caused we highly regret that".

Meanwhile, sources in the Central government alleged that "Kejriwal used the entire PM-CM meet platform for playing politics".

"He raised the point of airlifting oxygen, but did not know that it is already being done. He spoke about the 'Oxygen Express' but Railway sources say he has not communicated anything about it to them.

"He chose to spread lies on vaccine prices despite knowing that the Centre does not keep one vaccine dose with itself and shares with states only. All CMs spoke about what they are doing to improve the situation. However, Kejriwal had nothing to speak on what he is doing," a source said.

While some hospitals have managed to make short-term arrangements, there is no immediate end to the crisis in sight, a government official had said on Thursday.