A Rejoinder To The COVID Vultures Reporting From Ground Zero
Both the TV media and the Social media is hyped with visuals of hospitals In the Indian Capital New Delhi totally overwhelmed by the patients and people dying in the corridors and even in the ambulances. There seems to be shortage of everything; beds, doctors, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, etc. as well as empathy and planning. The visuals taken inside and outside the hospitals are really heart-wrenching. The opposition is on a point-scoring spree on the death tally. Even a CM telecast live an in-house meeting to play dirty politics. Channels are crying hoarse.
India is failing, crumbling, gasping, breaking ….a poor country sliding into chaos.
Well, the picture above is what a few Indians themselves are trying to paint in front of the rest of the World, just to score brown points against, India, Indian Government, the Current ruling party and that one man Shri Narendra Modi. However the reality is that NDIA IS MUCH BETTER OFF THAN MOST OF THE WORLD.
Just look at the figures below. It is not about the total deaths. As by today’s reported data, *India has 134 deaths/1 million of population. Almost, all the western countries including USA has reported more than 1,500 deaths per million.*
Hungary 2,719
Bulgaria 2,276
Belgium 2,056
Italy 1,960
UK 1,868
Brazil 1,795
USA 1,757
Poland 1,711
Portugal 1,667
Spain 1,657
France 1,562
Romania 1,417
Sweden 1,368
Switzerland 1,212
INDIA 134..
As on date India is 120 in the world in terms of deaths per 1 million. USA with double of the number of reported cases (compared with India) has 3 times more deaths. Interestingly CHINA is the only major country which has 3 deaths per 1 million of its population. Yes, India has miserably failed compared with China. But then CCP manufacturing sector is very robust. They can manufacture everything, even the Covid figures !
INDIAN MEDIA AND REPORTING
Do you think that the despair and gloom would have been less in the other countries? Obviously no. But no one has seen such gory images of dying patients, wailing attendants, aerial drone shots of crematoriums, shouting news anchors, corpses lined up for burial, honking ambulances, point scoring politicians, sensational news headlines, as if hell has broken lose.
Nowhere in the world, press reporters would be reporting directly live from the Covid wards ! Nowhere else the attendants would be attending their loved ones and being interviewed too. NOBODY in the world has seen the kind of COVID reporting being done in India. That is something which is the worst kind of yellow journalism and must be legally stopped.
WORST CASE SCENARIO
The casualty figures may get much worse than 134 for India. If the casualty rate becomes that of SWITZERLAND, then the total death count will be 17 lac and if it becomes that of between Italy and Belgium, it would be 34 lac!
The above is being reiterated that because we are facing a Pandemic which is the doing of some other country and the odds are so heavy against poorer nations. Germany has 13 beds for its 1,000 people. Its 13 for Japan, 6 for France, 4.6 for Switzerland, China has 4.3 bed per 1000 people. UK has 2.5, Canada 2.5, whereas in India it is 0.5 !
So for every 2,000 people we have one hospital bed. It is also not about medical facilities only. It is about our general attitude towards protection and safety. It is also about the necessity to go out for work. Not everyone has the WFH facility.
Now regarding the presebt Oxygen shortage. LINDE is one of the largest oxygen producer in India. This is whar Mr HM Bengani an ex CEO of Linde India has to say on the issue.
“Having spent my life time of 45 years in oxygen industry and involved with setting up 50% of production capacities in india ( as business head of Linde) I can share few things which will probably clear some of your thoughts. First few facts :
1) Industrial and medical oxygen are same product produced in same plant, stored in same tanks and filled in same cylinders. For medical oxygen the gas company just have to analyse each batch and certify. No other difference. In fact for industrial we need 99.5% pure oxygen where as for medical as per pharmocopea all over world is 93+\-3%.
2) There is absolutely no shortage of oxygen product in india. You will be surprised to know that less than 1% of oxygen production capacity is used for medical purposes. Even in corona times it may go up to three times or even 5%. But that’s it.
2) I would estimate total oxygen production capacity in india to be around 100,000 tons per day ( or may be more) and around 80% of oxygen production capacities are with steel companies where oxygen gas is produced and used in iron making as well as steel making. Yes, Relinace Jamnagar has 22000 tons per day capacity for petcoke gassification.
3) Most of captive plant are in East india, some in west ( Mumbai and Gujarat) and some in Karnataka. These plants typically produce 5-10% of product as liquid which is stored in large tanks. This liquid is used by them as back up when plant is down and also to meet peak demands.
4) There are several stand alone liquid oxygen plants owned by gas companies like Linde and Innox where they produce liquid oxygen and sell to various customers through tankers and tanks.
5) Several refillers around country buy liquid from gas companies and fill gas cylinders after vaporising liquid
6) Oxygen is generally delivered to end user by three means. Directly through pipe line from plant to end user which is say 80% of product. 15% or so is delivered in liquid form through tanks and tankers and less than 5% through cylinders
The crisis we are facing today is a combination of the following: –
1) Shortage of distribution assets ie road tankers, storage tanks and cylinders. Mind you these are expensive. Each road tanker costs 45 lakhs on road and a cylinder costs around 10,000 in which you sell oxygen just worth Rs 300. These assets have been built by gas companies based on normal times. There is only that much one can do with these assets
2) Logistics management. Most of Plants are located in select geographies. So distribution assets travel fair distance ( 200-1000 kms) to deliver to customer. Now even with good roads a tanker takes around 7-10 days to make a round trip and a cylinder also takes that much turn around.
3) Desire of gas companies to focus on what maximises their profits
Last but not least this wave came so quick it took our government administration with pants down. Had they thought of this impending danger and prepared, a major crisis could have been avoided. But that’s easy said than done knowing our democratic set up. Now Govt are taking steps. In hindsight I think Govt could have planned followings
1) Strict advisory to gas companies to use all distribution assets for medical purpose only from day one. They could provide compensation to gas companies for this just like MSP for food grains.
2) Advise all captive plants owners not to use a drop of liquid oxygen from plant / tank for their process use until they are full.
3) Using rails to transport through green door track
4) All hospitals could have installed PSA captive plants. PMO had announced 200 crores for all district hospitals and they could have around 500 plants. In usual public sector tendering process not even 15% of that has been used
5) CEO of large hospitals are also equally responsible. When they charge such huge money from public, they should have better prepared them selves. For what they get fat salaries and bonuses.
Once this crisis is over I think some heads of CEO of large hospitals must roll.
But in India, worst is the political lot. Here in UK, there are no partisan politicians who would do point scoring during a national emergency. Had the opposition and press been so damn bad in the UK a year ago, Boris Johnson would have long been history. But no, everyone rallied behind their PM for the national cause.
With all these heavy odds, whatever the India has done to combat the pandemic is commendable. Health is a State Subject, so any direct intervention by Centre will lead to a tsunami of protests and chorus …..democracy being murdered. However without declaring any National Emergency, the Central Government is now gearing up. Things have started moving. The Army, The Air Force and the Navy have come to the fore together with the Railways and have started moving oxygen and medical supplies to wherever needed.
There has been a wave of philanthropic nationalism. People have come forward to help one another. India has the capacity to combat this pandemic. All what India needs is patriotism, humanism and rallying around your national leadership.
