Telangana airlifts oxygen trucks from Odisha

Naveen S Garewal 
Tribune News Service 
Hyderabad, April 23

A day after indulging in a blame game for not allotting enough oxygen to Telangana, state Health Minister Eatala Rajender and Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar got into action and got the help of the army aircraft to airlift and quickly transport oxygen from Odisha. The move, first of its kind, will soon make enough oxygen available for all hospitals. 

Andhra Pradesh has already announced that it has adequate supplies of oxygen. Industries Minister Mekapati Goutham has said that the state had enough oxygen for its own use and clarified that it would only be sent to other states once the requirement of the state is met. The state produces 510 metric tonnes of oxygen in 40 plants across the state.

Since early Friday, Eatala Rajender and Somesh Kumar personally oversaw the loading of empty oxygen trucks into an army cargo aircraft at old Begumpet airport. The cargo aircraft have flown to Odisha, where the oxygen truck will be filled at Tata Steel Plant in Kalinganagar and brought back to Hyderabad by the cargo aircraft. 

The move has been widely hailed. On Thursday, the state had accused the Centre of allotting oxygen to Telangana from plants that were over 1,500 kilometres away. Besides, Telangana has also questioned the different price tags for the vaccine being given to the states. 

Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s son K T Rama Rao, who is also State IT Minister and working President of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party tweeted:  “My compliments to both Health Minister, Eatala Rajender and Chief Secretary, Somesh Kumar who are supervising oxygen tankers airlifting from Hyderabad to Odisha to bring back oxygen faster to Telangana. This will save three days and many valuable lives. First time India”. 

Meanwhile, while the state is being accused of grossly under-performing the COVID-19 testing, the Apollo Hospital has started the first drive-through Covid testing centre in Hyderabad. Located at Apollo Diagnostics at Meridian School, Madhapur individuals can now drive through in their four-wheelers, register and allow the healthcare workers to collect their samples for Covid RT-PCR tests, while sitting in their cars. It is being done on the same patter as is being done in the United States. 

With the rising number of COVID-19 cases, the Telangana Working Journalists Federation (TWJF) has reported ten deaths of journalists working with media houses in Telangana in the past week from complications of Coronavirus. Three journalists from Andhra Pradesh have also died after testing positive for the coronavirus in this same period. TWJF President M Somaiah said 150 journalists in Telangana have tested positive in the past three weeks of April 2021. 

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.