GUWAHATI: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday welcomed an Oxygen Express that carried 80 metric tonnes of medical oxygen here, and said any surplus will be supplied to other north eastern states.
The Oxygen Express, which started from Tatanagar Railway station in Jharkhand, reached the Inland Container Depot here with four containers.
Sarma said this would greatly help in meeting the increasing oxygen requirement in the state, primarily for treatment of COVID-19 patients.
The Oxygen Express would arrive in Assam twice a week, delivering a total of 160 MT.
"Apart from fulfilling its own requirement, Assam would supply surplus oxygen to other northeastern states of Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Tripura," the chief minister said.
The state has medical oxygen storage capacity of 800 litres at present, he added.
Sarma also said though there was a shortage of vaccines, the state government was making efforts to ramp up daily inoculation from 50,000 people to one lakh.