The shortage of oxygen in hospitals remains the biggest challenge due to increasing cases in the second wave of the Corona epidemic in the country.
Similarly, from May 1, everyone above 18 years of age has to be vaccinated. In view of this, the government has taken a big decision on Saturday.
The government has decided to remove the basic customs and health cess for three months for the smooth importation of the Corona vaccine, oxygen and related equipment.
Prime Minister Modi took an important decision in a high-level meeting
According to NDTV, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held a high-level meeting with several ministers and officials on Saturday about the growing infection and oxygen shortage in the country.
In this meeting, Prime Minister Modi emphasized that along with increasing the supply of medical oxygen in the country, there is an urgent need for the equipment required for the care of patients in hospitals. He then decided to remove the original customs and health cess.
After the meeting, Prime Minister Modi instructed the Revenue Department to give custom clearance to vaccines, oxygen and treatment-related equipment with immediate effect.
Apart from this, he has ordered the authorities not to levy any kind of customs duty on the vaccine, oxygen and their related equipment for the next three months.
He urged all ministries and departments to work in coordination to increase the availability of oxygen and medical equipment.
The price of oxygen and vaccine will be reduced
The government currently imposes 10 per cent customs duty or import duty and 16.5 per cent I-GST and social welfare cess on vaccines coming from abroad.
Due to these taxes, the imported vaccine will become significantly more expensive than the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech.
After this decision of the government, now the price of imported vaccines will be reduced and other related cesses including oxygen will also be cheap.
Continuous death of patients due to lack of oxygen
Lack of oxygen in the country continues to cause the death of patients. On Thursday, 25 patients died in Delhi’s Sir Gangaram Hospital.
After this, 25 patients died at Jaipur Golden Hospital in the capital on Friday night and six patients died in a private hospital in Amritsar, Punjab on Saturday.
Similarly, many hospitals in Delhi have appealed for help by warning of exhaustion of oxygen.
In the last 24 hours in India, 3,46,786 new cases of infection with the coronavirus were reported and 2,624 patients died. These are the highest number of cases and deaths reported in a single day in the country.
With this, the total number of infected people in the country has increased to 1,66,10,481. Of these, 1,89,544 people have lost their lives due to this dangerous virus. The number of active cases has crossed the 25 lakh mark to 25,52,940.
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