Mukesh Ambani sends Oxygen to a ‘gasping’ Uddhav, as Maharashtra crumbles under massive Covid surge

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani has come to the rescue of Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray and his seemingly inefficient coterie masquerading as a government. The Reliance group chairman has now stepped in to alleviate the woes of the people of Maharashtra, who have been experiencing a massive medical oxygen shortage, thus imperilling the lives of Covid-19 patients. Witnessing the massive spike in daily new cases in Maharashtra, Reliance Industries Ltd. has started supplying oxygen to the MVA-ruled state from the company’s refinery in Jamnagar. Maharashtra’s urban development minister, Eknath Shinde said that the state will get 100 tons of gas from Reliance.

Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which operates the world’s biggest refining complex in western India, has started supplying oxygen from Jamnagar to Maharashtra free of cost. Reliance is diverting some oxygen streams meant for its petroleum coke gasification units after making it suitable for medical use, according to Bloomberg. Earlier this week, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had said that there was a shortage of oxygen for Covid-19 affected patients and had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s help for supplying medical oxygen, and even called upon the Centre to rope in the Indian Air Force to save Maharashtra.

Maharashtra being rescued by Mukesh Ambani and his group is poetic, to say the least since the current government in the state has Congress as an active constituent. And as far as the Congress is concerned, its disdain for industrialists like Ambani is well known, which the party considers ‘friends’ of the BJP. Speaking of the Congress; its leader and former South Mumbai MP Milind Deora, reacting to the news of Ambani’s generous contribution to Maharashtra said, “Grateful to Mukesh Ambani for supplying 100 tons of oxygen to Maharashtra. From enhancing India’s PPE capacity to undertaking the world’s largest private-sector-led meal distribution program for daily-wage earners, @ril_foundation has disrupted philanthropy during COVID-19.”

The help being extended by Mukesh Ambani to Maharashtra will help save many lives. Had the government of the state known how to control the pandemic and prevent it from resurging, the country as a whole perhaps would not have been in the peculiarly gloomy situation that it is in today. Maharashtra expects its caseload to reach 11.9 lakh by April 30 compared to the current active caseload of 5.65 lakh. A 15-day lockdown of sorts is currently in effect across the state, imperilling the state’s economy and the livelihoods of innumerable people.