Maharashtra cannot afford to rely on others for medical oxygen in the present Covid-19 situation and priority must be given to produce 3,000 metric tons of the vital gas per day in the state itself, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said on Tuesday.

He was speaking after commissioning online an oxygen generation plant and inaugurating an RT-PCR laboratory in Saibaba General Hospital in Shirdi in Ahmednagar, some 240 kilometres from here.