Keeping in mind the rising demand of oxygen for patients in the wake of surge in Covid-19 cases, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday said that it will appoint six officers who would maintain coordination between the civic body and the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), to ensure proper oxygen supply in Mumbai.
The decision to appoint the officials was taken during a review meeting called to check the status of oxygen supply in the city. The meeting was attended by state Minister of Environment and guardian minister of Mumbai (suburbs) Aaditya Thackeray, BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal and other senior officials of the BMC.
Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner and in-charge of public health in the BMC, said that senior BMC officials who are well aware of the administrative set up in Mumbai and are deputed in posts like superintendent, head clerk and senior engineer will be appointed as the coordinating officials.
"The main control of supply will be with FDA while BMC will be supporting them, as being a state agency, they might not be aware of the administrative set up in BMC and Mumbai," Kakani told FPJ.
"The officials from BMC will coordinate with all the hospitals and and convene the oxygen requirement of these hospitals to the FDA on a daily basis," Kakani added.
Overall there are 24 municipal wards in the city and each official will be given responsibility of six municipal wards.
In the meeting, it was also discussed that presently 235 metric tonne of oxygen is being supplied to the hospitals in Mumbai and the requirement is increasing day by day.
During the discussion, FDA commissioner Abhimanyu Kale said that there is a heavy requirement of oxygen cylinders not just in Maharashtra but also across the state.
"The government is working towards procuring oxygen supply from other states and seeing the rapid rise in cases, reserve of oxygen will be provided to Mumbai on a priority basis," Kale said during the meeting.
Presently there are 150 Covid hospitals in Mumbai including government, civic-run and private hospitals. In the meeting, Chahal said that Mumbai presently has a capacity of 20 thousand beds, and two thousand more beds will be added by next week.
Earlier on Wednesday, Vinod Mishra group leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in BMC had urged the civic administration to hold a review meeting on the oxygen status with FDA, in an urgent basis.
