Chennai: With the Union government’s decision to divert about 45 metric tonnes of medical oxygen from a plant in Sriperumbudur near Chennai to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana snowballing into a controversy, the Tamilnadu government is planning to lodge its protest with the Centre.
State Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan wondered why the Centre resorted to diverting oxygen, when the State has always readily supplied it to other States in any crisis situation.
Assuring that the State had adequate stocks of oxygen, he said the issue of diverting medical oxygen to the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had been discussed with the Centre during earlier meetings and the State is not against giving oxygen to neighbours.
Wondering what the need was for the central government to divert the oxygen manufactured by a supplier at nearby Sriperumbudur, Radhakrishnan said that even during the pandemic times, the state has been supplying oxygen to others.
‘Even now the State is providing oxygen to its neighboring states who are in deficit for medical oxygen. We have not imposed any restrictions,’ he added.
DMK president M K Stalin wondered whether oxygen shortage was due to the careless attitude of the BJP government at the Centre or its administrative failure. The current situation also raised a question whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi was only bothered about the Tamilnadu and West Bengal elections and not the pandemic, he said. AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran also slammed Centre over the issue.