New Delhi: Indian Railways is continuing its journey of bringing relief by delivering liquid medical oxygen (LMO) to various states across the country. So far, Railways has delivered more than 20,770 MT of medical oxygen in more than 1,237 tankers to various states across the country. So far, a total of 305 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey and six loaded Oxygen Expresses are on their way with more than 420 MT of LMO in 26 tankers. Assam received its third Oxygen Express on Saturday with 80 MT of LMO in four tankers. Amongst the southern states, delivery of LMO to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana has crossed 1,600 MT each.
Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 35 days back on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT and oxygen relief and reached out to 15 states, namely Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam.
Till date, 614 MT of medical oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,731 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5,327 MT in Delhi, 1,967 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 1,994 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 1,735 MT in Tamil Nadu, 1,668 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 380 MT in Kerala, 1,770 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 240 MT in Assam.
Till now Oxygen Expresses offloaded LMO in around 39 cities/towns in 15 states across the country, namely Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, Bareilly, Gorakhpur & Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Sagar, Jabalpur, Katni & Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Mumbai & Solapur in Maharashtra, Hyderabad in Telangana, Faridabad & Gurugram in Haryana, Tuglakabad, Delhi Cantt & Okhla in Delhi, Kota & Kanakpara in Rajasthan, Bengaluru in Karnataka, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Nellore, Guntur, Tadipatri & Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ernakulam in Kerala, Tiruvallur, Chennai, Tuticorin, Coimbatore & Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Bhatinda & Phillaur in Punjab, Kamrup in Assam and Ranchi in Jharkhand.
"Indian Railways has mapped different routes with Oxygen supply locations and keeps itself ready with any emerging need of the States. States provide tankers to the Indian Railways for bringing LMO," said the Ministry of Railways.
Crisscrossing the country, Indian Railways is picking up oxygen from places like Hapa, Baroda, Mundra in the West and Rourkela, Durgapur, Tatanagar, Angul in the East and then delivering it to states of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh & Assam in complex operational route planning scenarios.
In order to ensure that Oxygen relief reaches in the fastest time possible, Railways is creating new standards and unprecedented benchmarks in running of Oxygen Express Freight Trains. The average speed of these critical Freight trains is way above 55 in most cases over long distances. Running on high priority Green Corridor, with the highest sense of urgency, operational teams of various zones are working round the clock in the most challenging circumstances to ensure that Oxygen reaches in the fastest possible time frame. Technical stoppages have been reduced to 1 minute for crew changes over different sections.
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