SOWR and DOWRs will ensure that required oxygen is shipped to hospitals and Covid care facilities and that refills are done properly and on time, according to a press release.
Under intense pressure to bridge the gap between oxygen demand and supply and to address the logistical issues that are hampering its efforts, the Andhra Pradesh government has established a state oxygen war room (SOWR) and is in the process of establishing district oxygen war rooms (DOWRs) . .
These war rooms have the task of procuring oxygen, organizing transport to covid hospitals and care centers, and ensuring safe storage for use in the coming months.
The increasing number of patients in need of oxygen to survive has led the government to make expanding manufacturing and supply infrastructure and setting up war rooms a top priority to ensure proper coordination, which is vital to preventing death.
According to an official announcement, the SOWR and DOWR will ensure that the necessary oxygen is distributed to the district headquarters hospitals and other key facilities for the supply of Covids and that refills are carried out properly and on time.
Basically, the responsibility for the bundling and allocation of oxygen to the districts lies with the SOWR, which is also commissioned to monitor the use of oxygen.
The SOWR is headed by the IAS officers MT Krishna Babu and S. Shan Mohan. They are supported by node officers from the Industry, Medicine & Health, Transportation, Revenue & Disaster Management (R&D), Police and IT departments.
Each of these departments has been assigned specific tasks to accomplish the larger task of providing unhindered oxygen to hospitals.
The industrial department was asked to get oxygen from all possible sources and even reopen closed units to produce as much oxygen as possible. More importantly, type B and D (industrial) cylinders are being converted into medical oxygen cylinders.
The departments for research and development, transport and police have the task of ensuring the smooth transport of oxygen containers and cylinders and of obtaining the life-saving gas from Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu as well as from the Visakhapatnam steelworks, which makes an important contribution to oxygen.
The police department will facilitate oxygen transport by opening green corridors when necessary.
The transportation department will move the oxygen tanks and cylinders on trains and in the air if the situation calls for it. It also plays a crucial role for the IT department by tracking oxygen transmissions using GPS and GIS mapping.