Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman cut fuel subsidies while slapping additional fuel taxes on unblended transport fuels in the latest Union Budget. The former will hit the rural poor, households that secured a subsidised LPG connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a programme that was partly instrumental in helping the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win the 2019 general elections. The latter will pretty much hurt the entire population after it kicks in from October. That's what it looks like. Or, perhaps, it's not as it appears to be, at least on the subsidy front.
The Union health ministry said the emerging scenario calls for immediate measures by states and UTs to ensure optimal availability of medical oxygen at all health facilities.
Bajaj Auto, the king of the market for CNG-powered passenger three-wheelers, now wants to replicate this dominance in two-wheelers. The difference is that while the former is zooming - registrations for CNG-powered passenger three-wheelers nearly doubled during January-December 2023 - the latter, meaning a market for CNG-powered two-wheelers, does not exist.
The opposition party vowed to hit the streets against the "Modi-made inflation" and run a people's movement over price rise.
When household bills for Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) jump over 60 per cent for those using 12 refills a year, the increase in the price of cooking fuel will beat that of petrol.
While the proceedings were on, the patient's relative urged the court to request authorities to arrange for an ICU bed as his vitals were low and he was in that emergency ward of a hospital.
Earlier, the top court had stayed the contempt proceedings against the Central government officials initiated by the Delhi high court over the issue.
Rates have been on the upswing since October, 2016.
"The problem is we don't have doctors, nurses, attendants, oxygen and medicines. It is a complete failure of the state," the bench said, adding that, "its getting tougher for us".
The ministry of petroleum and natural gas is evaluating a threshold at which the subsidy on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or cooking gas) will be reinstated. According to a senior government official in the know, a survey is currently being conducted to determine the price at which maximum consumers will keep buying domestic cylinders. One of the options also being considered is to limit any subsidy disbursal only to Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries.
Some hospitals in the national capital appealed to authorities on Tuesday to replenish their oxygen stocks, saying their patients' lives were at stake owing to erratic supplies.
Petrol and diesel prices were on Tuesday hiked by 80 paise a litre while domestic cooking gas prices were increased by Rs 50 per cylinder, ending an over four-and-half month election-related hiatus in rate revision, sources said. Petrol in Delhi will now cost Rs 96.21 per litre as against Rs 95.41 previously while diesel has gone up from Rs 86.67 per litre to Rs 87.47. Simultaneously, the price of a non-subsidised LPG cylinder has been increased to Rs 949.50 for each 14.2-kg bottle in the national capital.
If only you had thought ahead, you would have stocked snacks and biscuits, bread and cake, and vegetables suited for Amma or pondatti to make your favourite bajji and pakoda, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In September 2012, the government had capped the number of LPG cylinders at six to reduce the subsidy burden.
The home ministry noted that it took a number of steps to ensure adequate and uninterrupted supply of essential medical oxygen as well as life-saving drugs, including remdesivir.
Domestic cooking gas consumers in Delhi and Mumbai will from Wednesday get cash subsidy for buying cooking gas refils as the Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL) Scheme will be extended to 105 more districts.
The sub-group constituted by the Supreme Court to audit oxygen consumption in hospitals in the national capital during the second wave said the Delhi government "exaggerated" the consumption of oxygen and made a claim of 1,140 MT, four times higher than the formula for bed capacity requirement of 289 MT.
Too much subsidised cooking gas is being consumed by country's VVIPs, according to the transparency portal launched on Friday by state-owned oil firms.
Battling an acute shortage of oxygen, some hospitals in Delhi on Sunday sent out desperate SOS calls to authorities to replenish their dwindling stocks, with one healthcare facility even requesting the government to shift out its patients.
"We are in a very comfortable situation today. The daily requirement of oxygen is 3.6 metric tonnes and we have about six tonnes available which will last for the entire day. It is quite a comfortable situation."
The NINL management can see this as their moment of giving back to the nation and humanity. Its plant has an oxygen unit that can produce 418 tonnes of oxygen every day. 418 tonnes is about 58% of Delhi's daily demand for oxygen, notes Sudhir Bisht.
However, a prolonged and intense second wave that curtails oxygen supply to industries for a longer-than-expected period will exacerbate downside risk in affected sectors
'The oxygen crisis is at its worst. It is adding more pressure on the functioning. No one is able to help'
Ujjwala Yojana was launched on May 1, 2016 at Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh and has so far covered 47.3 million consumers in 715 districts
Terming the situation as scary, Nath also said there was a shortage of Remdesivir injections used in the treatment of coronavirus, and alleged that the key anti-viral drug and oxygen were available only on paper and not in reality.
A 14.2-kg subsidised LPG cylinder in Delhi will now cost Rs 507.42 as against Rs 505.34 previously, according to a price notification of State-owned fuel retailers.
LPG customers of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will continue to get cooking gas subsidy post-privatisation of the nation's second-biggest fuel retailers, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday. "Subsidy on LPG is paid to consumers directly and not to any company. So the ownership of the company that sells LPG is not of any material consequence," Pradhan told PTI. The government gives 12 cooking gas (LPG) cylinders of 14.2-kg each to households in a year at a subsidised rate.
LPG demand this fiscal is expected to be around 11 million tonne, against around 10.2 million tonne last year. It is the subsidised price of LPG, which is available at around Rs 21 per kg for domestic use. LPG for industries, which is outside price control, is sold at around Rs 58 per kg, up from around Rs 36 per kg last year.
Gandhi and his Congress party have been asking the government to shelve its plans on the Central Vista project and give priority to improving the country's medical infrastructure amid the COVID-19 pandemic to save people's lives.
The elite healthcare facility in central Delhi had sent multiple SOS messages last week amid a severe shortage of oxygen as the lives of hundreds of patients at the facility hung by a thread.
Goyal added the central government did mapping in a meeting with governments of 12 states and union territories most affected by COVID-19 and 6,177 metric tonnes of oxygen will be given to these states.
At a time when the country's medical infrastructure has become incapable of handling the pressure of Covid's deadly second wave, a parallel wave of conmen, black marketers and counterfeiters can be witnessed across the country. Geetanjali Krishna reports.
There are about 15.3 crore LPG consumers in the country.
Many hospitals are scrambling for beds and oxygen as COVID-19 infections surged to a new daily record. The situation is so bad that at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital in New Delhi, the country's largest facility treating COVID-19 patients, two or three patients were seen sharing single beds in some wards. Here's a glimpse of the struggle.
Over the weekend, many companies stepped in to ease the bottleneck in supply and transportation of oxygen, as demand ran high with the surge in cases.
The basic aim behind establishing PSA oxygen plants at government hospitals in the district headquarters is to further strengthen the public health system and ensure that each of these hospitals has a captive oxygen generation facility.
Javed Khan has been operating an auto ambulance in Madhya Pradesh's capital city since a month.
This will boost availability of these items as well as make them cheaper, it said, adding that Modi also directed the revenue department to ensure seamless and quick custom clearance of such equipment.
Describing the surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths in India as 'nothing short of heartbreaking', Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday that India's welfare is critically important to the US.
Six hospitals in the national capital have exhausted their oxygen supply while seven others have less than five hours of oxygen left, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday.
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