Opposition slams govt for claiming ‘no deaths due to oxygen shortage’

People wait to refill their cylinders at a centre in May. File pic/AFP

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said there have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage at several places across the country, and it was "completely false" to say no one died for want of the life-saving gas.

The Centre on Tuesday told the Rajya Sabha that no deaths due to lack of oxygen were specifically reported by states and UTs during the second wave.

"If no deaths occurred due to oxygen shortage, why did hospitals move high court one after another every day? Hospitals had been saying that oxygen shortage led to deaths. Television channels and newspapers reported how hospitals ran out of oxygen," Jain said. In the party's defence, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, "As no state/UT sent any data regarding deaths specifically due to shortage of oxygen, there is no data for that." Jain said the Centre didn't ask for such data.

Congress's Priyanka Gandhi said, "The deaths happened because...the Centre increased oxygen exports by about 700 per cent...it didn't arrange tankers to transport oxygen..."

Meanwhile, India recorded a single day rise of 3,998 deaths as Maharashtra reconciled its data, said the Centre the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday morning. The country recorded 42,015 new cases.

3,12,16,337
Total no. of Coronavirus cases in India so far

4,18,480
Total no. of deaths due to the virus in India so far

4,07,170
Total no. of active cases in India

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever