Railways produced 1.91 lakh PPE gowns, 66.4 kg sanitizer, 7.33 lakh masks till 24 June

Indian Railways on June 25 said that they have manufactured 1.91 lakh PPE gowns, 66.4 kg sanitizer, and 7.33 lakh masks till June 24.

In a coordinated response with state governments, the Indian Railways is gearing up to provide protective equipment to the country's frontline workers and other operational staffs in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. The railway ministry said in a statement that it is using all its resources judiciously to create/upgrade its facilities. 

READ: Indian Railways Conducts World's Largest Recruitment Exercise For 64,000 Posts

1.5 lakh PPE kits each for June and July

A railway ministry official, while speaking to the media, said that the railway workshops put huge efforts to produce these items. As per the reports, a total of 1.5 lakh PPE kits each has been targetted to be produced in the month of June and July.

Centralised procurement and distribution of the raw material and manufactured products throughout the Indian Railways' network was accomplished under testing circumstances during the lockdown, the official release added. 

READ: Indian Railways To Provide Full Refund For All Regular Trains Booked Till April 14

COVID Care Centers

The Indian Railways is set to provide COVID Care Centers to state authorities. Trains with a unit composition of 10 coaches, with patient capacity of 16 per coach have been furnished by the India Railways at stations across India. As per reports, Uttar Pradesh has finalised 24 stations for deployment, while Telangana has asked for coaches to be stationed in 3 locations - Secunderabad, Kachiguda and Adilabad.

"The Coaches can be used for very mild cases that can be clinically assigned to the Covid Care centers as per guidelines issued by MoHFW. These coaches can be used in areas where the state has exhausted the facilities and needs to augment capacities for isolation of both suspect and confirmed Covid cases. These facilities are part of the integrated COVID plan developed by MoHFW and NITi Ayog," an official release read. 10 coaches have been requested for Delhi.

The Railways claimed that so far, the state-run transporter has run more than 4347 Shramik Special trains to ferry approximately 60 lakh persons to their destination states. The service was started on May 1, after weeks of nationwide media coverage of the dire conditions of out-of-job migrant workers walking back to their native towns as the coronavirus-induced lockdown battered livelihoods in cities.

READ: Indian Railways Set To Provide Modified Coaches For COVID Care To States

READ: Indian Railways Records Best Ever Safety Performance In 2019-20, Zero Passenger Fatalities

Image Credits: PTI