Chandigarh beefs up security at Baddi oxygen plant

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 8

The Chandigarh Administration today beefed up security at the Baddi-based medical oxygen plant to avoid any untoward incident at the time when Chandigarh is grappling with the increasing number of Covid patients, leading to a high consumption of oxygen.

To ensure a smooth supply of oxygen to all healthcare institutions in the city, the Administration has decided to station officers at the INOX plant in Barotiwala, Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, and provide police escort to oxygen tankers leaving for Chandigarh, to reduce the travel time and avoid any untoward incident.

Besides, officers have been stationed on the premises of private refilling vendors to ensure that oxygen cylinders are allocated in a regulated manner, and there is no diversion from the UT quota.

Round-the-clock police security has been put in place at one of the oxygen generation plants in Industrial Area, Chandigarh. The reason for heightened security was two incidents where some influential persons, who were not eligible, pressurised a vendor to get oxygen cylinders.

According to an official statement of UT, “A senior PCS officer has been deputed to see the supply of oxygen to private hospitals and the daily quota has been fixed for each of the private hospitals in Chandigarh. Each of the private hospitals has been attached with either of the private vendors to avoid confusion and regulate the actual supply in a better way.”

The administration is also making efforts to have some backup arrangements from Punjab/Haryana to get oxygen on a loan basis, in case of any crisis.

Meanwhile, the voluntary organisations that have come forward to set up mini-Covid centres have been requested to make their own arrangements for oxygen through concentrators.