 "Railways, Oxygen")
The Indian Railways delivered more than 16,023 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen in over 977 tankers to 14 states/UTs over the last month amid a high demand for the life-saving gas due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the national transporter said on Monday.
So far, 247 Oxygen Express trains have brought relief to various states and Union territories (UTs), while 12 loaded Oxygen Express trains are currently running with more than 920 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) in 50 tankers.
On Sunday, more than 1,142 tonnes of oxygen was delivered by such trains, surpassing the previous best single-day record of delivering 1,118 tonnes of oxygen on May 20, it said.
The delivery of LMO by Oxygen Express trains to Tamil Nadu crossed 1,000 tonnes, the railways said.
Oxygen Express trains started their deliveries on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 tonnes of oxygen. They have reached out to 14 states/UT, namely, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
So far, 614 tonnes of oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,649 tonnes in Uttar Pradesh, 633 tonnes in Madhya Pradesh, 4,600 tonnes in Delhi, 1,759 tonnes in Haryana, 98 tonnes in Rajasthan, 1,063 tonnes in Karnataka, 320 tonnes in Uttarakhand, 1,024 tonnes in Tamil Nadu, 730 tonnes in Andhra Pradesh, 225 tonnes in Punjab, 246 tonnes in Kerala, 976 tonnes in Telangana and 80 tonnes in Assam, it said.
The national transporter maps different routes with oxygen supply locations and keeps itself ready with any emerging need of the states and Union territories. The states/UTs provide tankers to the railways for bringing LMO.
More From This Section
Criss-crossing the country, the Indian Railways is picking up oxygen from places like Hapa, Baroda, Mundra in the west and Rourkela, Durgapur, Tatanagar, Angul in the east, and delivering to Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Assam, in complex operational route planning scenarios.
In order to ensure that oxygen relief reaches in the fastest time possible, the railways is also creating new standards and unprecedented benchmarks in the running of Oxygen Express Freight Trains. The average speed of these critical freight trains is above 55 kmph in most cases over long distances.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
