Why is India breathless?

Amidst rising COVID cases, India is facing its biggest challenge: oxygen. But, what is the reason behind this shortage?

It is no secret that COVID has hit hard. It is also known that out of all the apparatus, the shortage of oxygen is most critical. The reason for this shortage can simply be divided into two time frames: long and short term. Long term referring to overarching issues and shortcomings which have been consistently present for decades. Short term consists of issues which have been born over the last few months.

The long term problems which have caused this overall system collapse are:

- Poor budget allocation

- Lack of synchronised supply chains

India has a population of around 1.4 Billion people. That is roughly 20% of the entire world. This large population consists of a majority which lives under the poverty line. In cases like these, the first order of business for any government is to fund and accelerate development in two fields: education and health care. Ignoring the education sector, the Indian public health care sector has been largely ignored.

With a population 7 times smaller than India, Brazil (another second world developing country) spends 9 times larger than India on its health care. The idea of "fairness" in this comparison may be brought up, but we should understand that even though the Indian population is higher - the focus is not something that is dependent on numbers but on planning. India only spends 1% of its GDP on healthcare, which, according to most leading doctors, is close to nothing.

Another thing that rides this wave of long term problems is the existing supply chains. There has never been an official supply chain that the government ran. Hospitals were responsible for providing oxygen for their patients; however, as transporting/supplying oxygen is not easy, families/patients have taken it upon themselves to acquire this life-saving gas.

Logically this is not flawed, however, when considering the gravity and importance of this gas we must question why oxygen has been sold off in an unregulated and decentralised manner?

It was the lack of planning once again. The simple supply chain works in the following manner: Oxygen is produced ---> Given to an aggregator (middle man) ---> Shipped of to hospitals and other required facilities.

Now due to the splurge in demand the producers and middlemen are directly dealing with customers. For example, if 100 oxygen cylinders are being produced, then as the middlemen are dealing with customers who have "contacts" the hospitals end up only receiving 50 oxygen cylinders. This is due to a lack of regulation and pre-planning, which has been the case for many of the apparatus which we need now.

The short term problems are:

- Transportation problems

- Poor storage

- Lack of cylinders/fillers

- Beauracracy

Oxygen is not transportable by plane due to its nature and possible threats in terms of flammability. Therefore, it must be transported through sea, railway or road. However, due to the unavailability of transport the oxygen cylinders are not reaching the desired locations in time. India only has seven oxygen generation plants and some remote areas are a thousand kilometres away from the nearest generation plant. Moreover, there is a shortage of truck transporters which has made the entire process very difficult.

Poor storage facilities have also not allowed remote areas to receive their oxygen supply. The storage of oxygen for long periods of time is done in cylinders in shade and concentrated circumstances which are not seen everywhere. Thus, this discourages the mass supply of oxygen as most of the gas will end up being wasted.

The amount of available cylinders is also a significant issue. Oxygen generation plants are in short number, but, the only method to the advantage of their services - being the cylinders - are also not in abundance. As the coordination on the ground level is not streamlined, there are many thousands of cylinders lying empty around cities and not being sent back to the plants to be filled.

India is capable of producing about 9,000 Metric Tonnes of oxygen every day, out of which 7,000 Metric Tonnes are used up industries. In order to counteract the shortage, the government has banned the use of oxygen in industries (except military) and forced all the supply to be used for medical reasons. These are some of the actions which are being taken. Moreover, there are numerous oxygen generating kits, lakhs of empty oxygen cylinders, etc., which has been supplied to India in the form of donations by leading countries.

This shortage is being dealt with at a rapid pace, however, bureaucracy has been one of the reasons which has been halting the actions. Many things have been stopped at customs and are not yet allowed to be distributed to the general public. Many containers and good carriers have been docked and stored at Delhi Airport (T-2) and are awaiting clearance for dispatch.

The government is at the earliest looking into the matter and has already successfully dispatched the foreign donations, but a lot still remains stationary.

These are trying times, and we can hope/expect them to resolve sooner than later.