Citizens Against Covid condemns move by Cylinder Manufacturing Firms to hike rates of empty oxygen cylinders – to approach courts

MUMBAI, 11th May: The Citizens Against Covid (India) – a forum of individuals coordinating relief and medical support to Covid patients and their relatives in Mumbai and Goa via a dedicated helpline, has today condemned the move by Oxygen Cylinder manufacturing companies to hike the rates of empty oxygen cylinders in India. It has also condemned the action of distributors and wholesalers who are hoarding empty cylinders and selling them in black at the rate of Rs 30 to 35,000/- per jumbo size cylinder.

Spokesperson and convener for the Citizens Against Covid, Flynn Remedios said: “In February this year, the cylinders were selling at Rs 8000 to Rs 9000 for a jumbo D-type cylinder of capacity 47.6 litres (200 Cft, 7 Cubic meter capacity). However, since March-end as the second wave of the Covid pandemic raised its ugly head in Maharashtra and other states, the manufacturing companies suddenly claimed they were completely out of stock, while the stockists and distributors hiked their prices to almost double the earlier rate. This was a deliberate move by the manufacturing companies in collusion with the distributors to create a deliberate shortage of the product and hike its rates by hoarding and black-marketing of the same.

Price of empty jumbo size oxygen cylinders has gone up from Rs 9000 to Rs 16,000 over the last 3 months

Today most of the major manufacturing companies in India are quoting a price of Rs 16,000 per jumbo cylinder (bulk purchase rate) – which was priced at Rs 9000 a few months earlier. How did the price increase from Rs 9000 to Rs 16,000, Remedios asks?

In metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru the jumbo cylinders are selling in black at Rs 30 to Rs 35000 per cylinder and customers and patients have no choice but to buy at this exorbitant rate. When we approached the manufacturing companies, they said that use of industrial oxygen for manufacturing purposes was banned by the Centre (manufacture of empty cylinders requires industrial oxygen) and hence manufacturing activity had come to a full stop, Remedios said.

“However, the truth of the matter is that the manufacturing companies had taken huge advances from the distributors and were only delivering available stock to a handful of distributors in India, who in turn hoarded the empty cylinders and created a black market. Manufacturing was stopped only for about 10 days, but the companies have doubled the price of empty cylinders,” he said.

According to Flynn Remedios, in places like Goa, patients in immediate need of oxygen are forced to shell out Rs 25,000 for a jumbo oxygen cylinder and buy from the black market for a product that should not cost more than 12,000/-

Remedios has approached the Bombay High Court for appropriate directions to the manufacturers of empty oxygen cylinders regarding black marketing and the exorbitant price rise during the second wave of the pandemic.