Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Overcoming all hurdles and finding new solutions, Indian Railways is continuing its journey of bringing relief by delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to various states across the country. So far, it has delivered more than 17,945 MT of LMO in more than 1,080 tankers to different states across the country. A total of 272 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far.
In a scale up of operations which continued till May 25, 2021, late night, 12 Oxygen Expresses with 969 MT of LMO started their journeys from Cyclone hit Eastern States and beat tough weather to bring relief to the Nation.They include 3 trains for Tamil Nadu, 4 trains for Andhra Pradesh, and 1 each for Delhi region, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Kerala. Amongst the Southern States, delivery of LMO to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Telangana crossed 1,000 MT each.
Jharkhand received it’s First Oxygen Express to become the 15th State to get Oxygen from Railways. It is Indian Railways’ endeavour to deliver as much LMO as possible in the shortest time possible to the requesting states. Oxygen relief by Oxygen Expresses have reached 15 states namely Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Assam, according to a PIB release.
Till the time of this release, 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,731 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 633 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 4,910 MT in Delhi, 1,911 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 1,653 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 1,158 MT in Tamil Nadu, 929 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 246 MT in Kerala, 1,312 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand, and 160 MT in Assam. States provide tankers to the Indian Railways for bringing LMO. It may be noted that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 32 days back on April 24, 2021, in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT.
Criss crossing 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 the same to States of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Assam.
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. Tracks are kept open and high alertness is maintained to ensure that Oxygen Express keeps zipping through. All this is done in a manner that speed of other Freight Operation doesn’t get reduced.