Indian Railways has expanded their ‘Oxygen Express’ operations to Haryana and Telangana right after Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi to bring relief to the states as India battles the second wave of Covid 19. Presently, 4 ‘Oxygen Express’ trains are on the run.
Two trains loaded from Bokaro to Lucknow, one empty train from Faridabad and carrying tankers of the Haryana government is enroute to Rourkela and a further empty train is on the way from Secunderabad for Angul with tankers of Telangana government. It is anticipated that cumulative LMO carried by IR will attain just about 640 MT in the next 24 hours.
The state of UP received its fifth ‘Oxygen Express’ carrying 76.29 MT of LMO in 5 tankers. While one tanker was offloaded in Varanasi, remaining 4 tankers had been offloaded in Lucknow. The sixth train is on its way to Lucknow and is anticipated to arrive on Friday, carrying 33.18 MT LMO in 4 tankers. Another empty rake is anticipated to leave Lucknow for bringing next set of oxygen tankers.
Haryana will get its initially ‘Oxygen Express’ with two tankers with the train anticipated to leave Angul (Orissa) on 29 April. An empty rake from Faridabad to Rourkela is also on its way and is anticipated to attain Thursday evening. On the request of the Telangana government for ‘Oxygen Express’, an empty rake is on its way from Secunderabad to Angul with 5 empty tankers and is anticipated to attain Angul on Friday.
Under the common procedures, states provide tankers to IR which then proceeds in the quickest mode to bring the oxygen supplies from the places and delivers it to the requisitioning state. The deployment and use of this oxygen is performed by the state government. Railways is also carrying out route mapping to take benefit of the maximum clearances out there along the route.