Maligaon, May 14 (MExN): Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) General Manager, Anshul Gupta on May 13 interacted with the media persons through a virtual press conference and highlighted the NFR and Indian Railways’ activities. He said that the NFR has converted 288 of its passenger coaches into COVID care isolation wards and is also equipping the existing six railway hospitals with oxygen plants.
According to a press release from the NFR Chief Public Relations Officer Subhanan Chanda, during the interaction, the GM stated that the NFR has been making an all out effort to supplement the health care efforts of state governments, in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. The steps include modification of 288 passenger coaches as COVID care isolation coaches, equipping the existing railway hospitals with oxygen plants etc., to meet the COVID-19 needs. NFR has provided facilities for treatment of COVID positive patients in 6 of its Railway Hospitals with a total of 354 beds. Each of these special wards has all the basic healthcare facilities required for the treatment of COVID positive patients with mild symptoms, Chanda stated.
During this pandemic, to keep the economy moving and to meet the demand of essential and other commodities, highest ever freight loading of 111.53 MT was done in April 2021 by Indian railways despite constraints. This is 10.4% more than previous best of 101.04 MT in April 2019. NFR also loaded 1.04 MT this year till now as compared to 0.47 MT done in corresponding period of last year, Chanda informed.
Further, the NFR released 11,659 freight rakes during 2020-21 against 9,731 rakes previous year which is a growth of 20%. During April this year 1,186 rakes were unloaded against 622 rakes last year with an increase of 90.68%.
During last year, 26 new stations opened for handling of goods traffic, 12 new stations opened for handling of parcel traffic and 24x7 loading/unloading facilities were provided in 18 goods sheds to help economy and generate income for labours involved in loading/ unloading.
Despite COVID related restrictions, about 50% passenger train services have been restored in the NFR zone and at present, 78 Specials trains and 35 Local Passenger trains are running per day.
As per the release, the Indian Railways is also running ‘Oxygen Express’ to bring relief to needy states. The first Oxygen Express was run between Mumbai to Vizag on April 19 and the 100th Oxygen Express delivered relief to States on May 11. Indian Railway carried more than 6,260 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen till May 12. He stated that the NFR is ready to run Oxygen Express trains if it is required by the State Governments. Jeevan Prakash Special carrying an Oxygen Plant was run by Railways from Delhi to Guwahati by creating a Green Corridor for faster movement of the consignment. The train covered a distance of approximately 2,100 Km in just 32 hours at an average speed of 65 Kmph, the release stated.
