The government has moved on a war-footing to ramp up the supply of  oxygen to Covid-hit states and has decided to set up new oxygen plants at more hospitals in remote areas.

The decision comes amid a surge in coronavirus cases that is tending to overwhelm healthcare services across the country and left several states struggling to deal with the situation.

Another hundred hospitals in remote areas of the country will get their own oxygen plants with money from the PM-CARES fund being allocated for the purpose and production of the crucial gas used to treat severe Covid-19 patients has been ramped up, the government said on Thursday.

Supplies of oxygen ran short in some states but the government allayed fears over a shortage of the gas saying India is producing oxygen at full capacity for each of the last two days and it had boosted output.

"Along with the ramped up production and the surplus stocks available, the present availability is sufficient," the health ministry said in a statement.

"An indicative framework has been developed to guide the states on the sources of medical oxygen," the statement said.

Some 162 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants, which help hospitals make their own medical oxygen, sanctioned under the PM-CARES fund are being closely reviewed for early completion, it said.

The government will also identify another 100 hospitals in far flung locations for consideration of sanction for installation of PSA plants, it added.

A separate government statement said 12 states – Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan – have been identified as "high burden".

India has added over 2 lakh infections over the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, for a seventh daily record surge in the last eight days, while 1,038 deaths took its number of fatalities to 173,123.