Coronavirus lockdown: Railway delivers medicine from Pune to Belgaum to a 4-yr-old

Pune: Indian Railway turned out to be an angel for a four-year-old boy from Belgaum. The family of the boy used to buy particular medicines for him from Pune as he's under special treatment of a homoeopathic doctor from the city. With borders sealed due to the COVID-19, the boy was unable to get the medicines.

The boy has trouble swallowing the food since childhood. His oesophagus is small in size, and he cannot swallow food properly and thus from the last year-and-half, he has been taking homoeopathic medicines from a Pune-based doctor. The boy's uncle always sends the medication to the family by courier. Usually, he gets it before it goes out of stock. Now, due to lockdown, the family did not get the medicine on time, and the rest of the medication has gone out of the stock.

Local police rejected the family's request to travel to Pune. Finally, a family friend suggested that they talk to railway authorities. "The railway officials of Belgaum discussed the matter with the officials in Pune on April 11. The Operation Manager Mayank Rana and Assistant Commercial Manager (ACM) Ajay Kumar helped the family. 

The family arrived at the station, and they handed over the medicine to a guard of a goods train going from Pune to Belgaum. After changing three guards from Pune to Belgaum via Miraj, the medicine arrived the next day at Belgaum station. During this period, both the officers were in contact with the guards," said Manoj Jhawar, Pune Railway Division Public Relation Officer (PRO).

However, due to the lockdown, the family could not go to receive the parcel at the station; thus, the railway staff of Belgaum reached the family's house. The family could not thank enough the Railway authorities for the help.

Railways ensuring supplies
In the lockdown period from March 22 to April 14, the Pune railway division has run more than 800 goods trains to maintaining essential supplies between North and South India apart from preserving the supply of essential commodities in the aforementioned district. 

The division unloaded 14 rakes of food grains at Pune, Satara, Miraj and Kolhapur after the lockdown had been announced. This amounts to more than 50,000 tonnes of foodgrains to maintain supplies. Also, division unloaded 14 rakes, equivalent to 14 lakhs cylinder units at Bhilawadi, a small town of Sangli District to maintain supplies of LPG in this area. 

Apart from these, six rakes of fertilisers, four rakes of cement and eight rakes full of iron and steel were unloaded at various terminals of Pune division after the lockdown in coordination with the State government. 

Loni station of Pune Division loaded six rakes, equivalent to eight lakh litres of petroleum products during this period of lockdown. These rakes were for destinations like Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Sholapur, Navlur, Jabalpur and Sagar. Also, Baramati Station loaded 3,500 tonnes of sugar for Dindigul and nearby areas of Tamil Nadu. DRM Renu Sharma had assured all stakeholders that the supply of essential commodities would not be hampered.