(file pic : Railways Minister Piyush Goyal)
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. Oxygen Expresses crossed mark of 26,000 MT of LMO delivery in service to the Nation. So far, Indian Railways has delivered more than 26,281 MT of LMO in more than 1,534 tankers to different states.
It may be noted that 376 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far. Six loaded Oxygen Expresses are on run with more than 483 MT of LMO in 26 tankers. Southern States of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka received more than 3,000 MT of LMO each from Oxygen Expresses. Oxygen Expresses offloaded more than 2,800 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen(LMO) in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is worth mentioning that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 43 days back on April 24, 2021, in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT.
Oxygen relief by Oxygen Expresses have reached 15 states : Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Assam.
Till the time of this release, 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5,790 MT in Delhi, 2,212 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 3,097 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 3,237 MT in Tamil Nadu, 2,804 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 2,474 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand, and 400 MT in Assam.
Till now Oxygen Expresses have offloaded LMO in around 39 cities/towns in 15 states across the country. They are: 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, according to a PIB release.
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.
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 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. The average speed of these critical Freight trains is way above 55 in most cases over long distances.