The Bombay High Court on Thursday said the Maharashtra government must consider passing an ordinance making it mandatory for private hospitals to have their own oxygen manufacturing units to meet the demand for the life-saving gas amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

A bench of Justices Amjad Sayyad and G S Kulkarni was referring to a previous order of the court, in which a bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta had said that it was high time that private hospitals in the state had their own oxygen plants.