Railways Convert Train Coaches To COVID Care Facilities Amid Bed Shortages Across States

Amid the dangerously alarming surge in the COVID-19 infections across the country, the Indian Railways has converted 4,002 train coaches as a COVID-19 care-cum-isolation facility to assist the state governments facing a shortage of beds in their respective states. The coaches will be allocated to state governments on request, the ministry said in a release while adding that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea to convert the railway coaches into a COVID care facility.

Union Minister for Railways, Piyush Goyal took to Twitter to post a few pictures of railway coaches converted to COVID-19 care centre in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar. The Railways has deployed 94 coaches in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar. These coaches would be used by the state government when they exhaust their own medical facilities. The middle berth in the coaches has been removed to convert it to COVID-19 facilities.

Moreover, the Northern Railways has deployed 50 isolation coaches having two oxygen cylinders each at Delhi’s Shakur Basti railway station and 25 such facilities will be placed at Anand Vihar by Monday