Mumbai, May 5: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said that the state has been aiming to increase its oxygen generation capacity to 3,000 metric tonnes per day after the central government warned about the Covid-19 third wave.

Thackeray, while addressing the state through a video conference said, "Central government's scientific body has warned about the third wave of COVID. We are preparing for that since last month. Several districts are seeing a decline in COVID cases while some districts are seeing an increase in cases. We are keeping a close tab on it."

The Maharashtra CM further said, "We have a demand of 1700 MT oxygen and 1200 MT is produced by us, rest 500 MT is provided to us by other states and sources with help of Center." Maharashtra Reports 57,640 New COVID-19 Cases, 920 Deaths.

We have to increase our oxygen generation capacity up to 3000 MT every day. We are doing preparations for this under the 'Mission Oxygen' Program," he said. According to official data issued on Wednesday, Maharashtra reported 57,640 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours taking the cumulative cases to 48,80,542.

"There are 6,41,596 active cases of COVID-19 in the state while 920 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. As many as 72,662 people have succumbed to the disease so far in Maharashtra," the data said.

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