Guwahati, June 17 (MExN): The General Manager of the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), Anshul Gupta today interacted and briefed media persons on various COVID-19 initiatives being undertaken by the Indian Railways and NFR through a virtual press conference from its headquarter at Maligaon, Guwahati.
In order the contain the spread of COVID-19, the NFR is making all out effort to supplement the health care efforts of state governments, noted a press release from its Chief Public Relations Officer, Subhanan Chanda.
Among others, it included equipping the existing railway hospitals for treatment of Covid patients, installing oxygen plants in hospitals, organizing vaccination drives for its employees etc, it said.
NFR also provided facilities for treatment of Covid positive patients in 6 of its railway hospitals with a total of 354 beds and more than 1250 patients have been treated in these hospitals since April, 2021, the release said. 7 Oxygen plants are also planned to be installed in various hospitals of NFR.
A total of 19 vaccination centre are in operation all over NFR and nearly 95% RPF and 72% NFR’s Care Workers have received their 2nd dose already, it added.
Meanwhile, 7 Indian Railways’ Oxygen Express trains have also arrived in Assam with 560 Metric Tonne (MT) of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) while 440 such trains have already completed their delivery in various states by carrying 31704 MT of LMO till yesterday, the release said.
On the economic front, to keep the economy moving and to meet the demand of essential and other commodities, the highest ever freight loading of 114.82 MT was done in May 2021 by Indian railways despite constraints, it maintained.
This is 9.7% more than previous best of 104.65 MT in May 2019 and the NFR also loaded 1.480 MT this year till May as compared to 0.802 MT done in corresponding period last year denoting an 84.5% increase, it said.
The NFR also released 11659 freight rakes during 2020-21 against 9731 rakes previous year which is a growth of 20%, it added.
It further said that 19 new stations were opened for handling of goods traffic while 12 new stations were opened for handling of parcel traffic and 24x7 loading/unloading facilities.
The NFR also operated 103 Kisan Rails including 64 incoming from other railways and provided “cheaper & “faster transportation solution to the farmers of Northeast” so that they can easily send their local produce to bigger markets outside, it maintained.
Plan to restore 72% passenger train services by mid July
Despite of Covid related restrictions, nearly 72% passenger train services have been planned to be restored in our area by mid of July, it added.
At present, the NFR is running 49 pairs Specials Mail/Express trains and 5 pairs Local Passenger trains per day while notification for operation of 21 more pairs of Specials Mail/Express trains have already been given.
Besides highlighting those initiatives, Gupta also informed the media about allotment of 5 MHz spectrum to Indian Railways by Government of India, the release said.
“It will increase the safety and security of train operations in a big way and enable Railways to use latest indigenous technologies such as Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) etc,” it added.
