Second wave of covid crisis and supply chain disruption in india

Dear My All Fellow Indians,

We everyone, witnessing a very serious disaster covid-19 and losing thousands of lives every day as known as  Tsunami of covi-19 in second wave so far. India is struggling to save our people life and working with all possible solutions to overcome from this devastating situation. Currently 10 states are under bad impression of covid-19 and cases have been reached at highest cases 352,000++ per day ever before. But why suddenly this situation arises and almost every person stands in the line of death and life. Being responsible citizen of the country, we must have to see out of box and have to acknowledge the basic facts and reality at the same time. There may be multiple reasons that caused  to invite this terrible situation, but the question is  why we did not wake up early stage to stop spread of potential threat of covid and we are truly responsible for it.

Now there is more disaster yet to come and how much we are prepared to overcome from this pandemic and that may not have perfect answer right now. At the same time, we can’t ignore these failures to tackle with supply chain disruption faced across the country . The importance of supply chain decision  at strategic , planning, and operational level is always critical to meet the immediate need of supply and demand for basic medicals supplies, life saving oxygen , and human capital such as medical professionals.  whereas our failure accounted in great supply chain disaster in the way to prevent covid -19 and it seems that our supply chain response plan in preventive action mode were not in position that is now big barrier  in the battle of Covid-19. People are dying due to lack of life saving oxygen , ICU units, Beds, and basic medication and this is fact. We have no ideas where it will stop. Indian is not only the country it is country of many continents and have multi-cultural ,social , economical ,diversity and inclusion with world second largest populations in the world. We had successfully tackled the first wave of covid 19 however this second wave of covid has taken thousands of lives and forced to leave people under huge threat and risk of saving life. Initially people were too relax or no more serious of covid-19 after first wave. Not following the guidelines as issued by GOI (Government of India). Being too much optimistic on vaccination which was not in full swing. People were returned to home quarantine that led the community spreading. Weather change in few states that cause colder, and cough also allowed people get more infected Covid-19.

Before second wave of covid started , our liquid oxygen consumption was 2800MT and now it has been reached to 5000MT Per day. Despite of having of enough capacity of production capacity that are located in states of Haryana , Maharashtra , Tamilnadu , Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Orrisa, west Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. we must know our major producer for oxygen with their production capacity including inox India -3330M , Linde India 1200MT, Vedanta group 1050MT, Jindal steel-800MT, Reliance industries-700MT, SAIL india-600MT, Arcelor mittal -200MT, India oil-262MT,Essel 10MT

Currently we have production capacity of 7287MT Per day , consumption 3842MT/per day and demand on the spot is 5000MT/per day. Oxygen plants are located Morley in industrial area that’s far from the residential and need the right mode of transportation with containers that exactly we are lacking cryogenic storage oxygen containers in the country. Presently we have nearly 1200 to 1500 cryogenic storage oxygen tanks and we been in immediate need of 2500-300 cryogenic storage oxygen tanks per day. We must focus on right logistics to deliver these needy medical resources and have to work with heart and mind taking humanitarian supply chain at priority.

Citizens are our first priority to save people life at any cost within short span of time and this is our biggest challenge at this time. We need solid action plan in place, where entire supply chain should be managed at micro level taking decentralization of resources capacity planning and distribution across country. Obviously  Indian government is playing the prominent role at this time to save our lives .

People, politics, price, and power are major key drives to smoothen supply chain resiliency and decentralize our resources across the country.

Here ,Politics is the power to demonstrate strong leadership by integrating all supply chain resources and capacity planning with common purpose to fight with covid-19. I believe Indian leadership has been taking major strategic decision to align supply and demands of basic life saving oxygen and other necessary medical supplies across country and need to focus further at last mile delivery for each and every person in need.

Leadership in supply chain  is very crucial with positive willpower to collaborate all possibilities resources to cope with covid-19. The first and foremost basic foundation in supply chain leadership are coordination, collaboration, communication, integration and acquisition with all stakeholders, traders, countries, alliances, partners, communities in or out of the country. People are first key resources to fight covid -19 that means all medical professionals and front line warrior, different communities and other stakeholders can play greater role by taking active pre-caution , sharing awareness , helping each other and more importantly act as responsible citizens of the country.

Price is nothing but need balancing basic health and infrastructure requirement to meet the upcoming peak of covid 19 that is expected to be around 1st week of May.

We cannot ignore the fact that people are dying due to lack of basic life saving oxygen but more importantly to understand there are more fake news spreading around us and that is almost killing other aspects of society too. Government of India has been working tirelessly to save the people first. Following initiative has been taken so far in internal and have already executed at the ground level.

1.           GOI has launched mission oxygen country wide to ensure the 24x7 availability of oxygen at the last line of people reach.

2.           GOI has set up the green corridor to move liquid oxygen from industrial area to residential/hospital location and Indian railway is playing key role to transport life saving oxygen to needy people at their best.

3.           Indian air force has been activated to transport empty cryogenic storage oxygen tanks to the filling stations across country to avoid delay in transportation and Indian glob master C-17 and other Indian air force air fleet on their mission to deliver all possible resources to the ground.

4.           Indian army has roll back their retired or VRS medical officer and paramedical staff to render their service for civilians now.

5.           GOI has announced 5kgs of free grains (foods) per month /per person up to three months that will help to survive nearly 800,000,000 people across country.

6.           GOI has announced free vaccination for age of 18++ that will help to prevent covid nearly 70% population of the country and age of +45 already under progress of vaccination.

7.           ITBP,DRDO and Indian army has made and now operational 500++beds covid hospital in Delhi and Lucknow within short span of time and others immediate formation of covid hospital on progress.

8.           GOI has sanctioned 512 oxygen plant close to all prime medical facility across country.

Under leadership of MODI Administration  and GOI has taken the following immediate short terms and long terms strategic decision externally and all these decisions somehow have been implemented and under execution. Now leadership is taking close coordination, alliance and cooperation with other countries and results of such cooperation is being seen on the reality of ground so far and this became possible due to our ONE value and philosophy of humanity  as “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam “ denotes that world is one family with our strong international alliance , close friendship, and mutual diplomacy at best.

1.           USA has delivered 318 phils oxygen concentrator ,rapid test kit, ventilator by air.

2.           USA has also uplifted ban of export of covid-vaccination raw material to import in India.

3.           UAE has also delivered 07 units of cryogenic storage oxygen tanks to India.

4.           Saudi Arabia has delivered 80MT of Liquid oxygen via sea and its under way to India.

5.           Singapore has also delivered 05 units of cryogenic storage oxygen tanks to India via air.

6.           Germany is under progress to deliver 23 units of mobile oxygen generator plant and hoping to be reached soon in India.

7.           France and UK is sending 495 oxygen concentrator ,120 non-invasive ventilators ,20 manual ventilators via 09 air craft.

8.           Russia is under way to deliver 400,0000/doze remdesivir every week via air route and sending bulk amount of oxygen liquified gas via sea.

9.           Ireland has delivered 700 units of oxygen concentrator already to India.

10.         Hongkong has also delivered 800 oxygen concentrators via air and many more other 22 countries on direct contact with Indian government to extend their kindness and support at this pandemic.

11.         Bhutan has been delivering  40MT of liquid oxygen every day to India.

Prime minister has given a MANTRA as if we must work as a nation then we will definitely defeat this crisis. This is clearly given us the direction to lead the nation with unity and integrity to fight with covid-19. We cannot just simply blame the government for shortcomings and get excused our self. We are equally responsible and must act as responsible citizen to counter this devastating covid 19 . Again there are huge challenge exits in the way of execution humanitarian supply chain process  in this crisis including speculative buying or panic purchasing ,Black marketing ,Challenge of Law and order in society, Safety of frontline worker and medical staff, Nationwide vaccination distribution plan execution.

Let us work together to save our lives.

Jai Hind, Vande mataram

Sources : My own experience and various press brief by GOI