PremiumIn exactly one month, the Indian Railways delivered more than 16,023 tonnes of medical oxygen amid a high demand for it due to the ongoing pandemic. The national transporter's Oxygen Express trains started their deliveries on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 tonnes of oxygen.
Indian Railways said in an official statement, it is worth mentioning that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 30 days back on 24th April in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT. Within one month time Indian Railways has delivered more than 16000 MT of LMO to 14 states across the country.
It may be noted that 247 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various States, it also said adding 12 loaded Oxygen Express trains are currently running with more than 920 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) in 50 tankers.
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.
In such testing times, 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 delivered life-saving gases 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.
Highest single-day load delivered on Sunday
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.
In its statement it said, Highest ever single day load of more than 1142 MT of Oxygen relief delivered by Oxygen Expresses yesterday. Previous best was 1118 MT on 20th May 2021.
Amongst the Southern States, delivery of LMO to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka crossed 1000 MT each.
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, the release stated.
(With inputs from agencies)
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