By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: 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 the milestone of 25000 MT of LMO delivery in service to the Nation.So far, Indian Railways has delivered more than 25629 MT of LMO in more than 1503 tankers to various states across the country.
It may be noted that 368 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various States.Till the time of this release, 7 loaded Oxygen Expresses on run with more than 482 MT of LMO in 30 tankers.
Assam received its Fifth Oxygen Express with 80 MT LMO in 4 tankers from Jharkhand.More than 3000 MT Liquid Medical Oxygen(LMO) offloaded in the state of Karnataka by Oxygen Expresses.
It is worth mentioning that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 42 days back on 24th April in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT.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 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 the time of this release, 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5790 MT in Delhi, 2212 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 3097 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 2787 MT in Tamil Nadu, 2602 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 2474 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 400 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.
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.
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 a highest sense of urgency, operational teams of various zones are working round the clock in most challenging circumstances to ensure that Oxygen reaches in fastest possible time frame. Technical stoppages have been reduced to 1 minute for crew changes over different sections.
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 as well.Running of new Oxygen is a very dynamic exercise and figures keep getting updated all the time. More loaded Oxygen Expresses are expected to start their journeys later in the night.
