Amid the second wave of COVID-19, Oxygen Express trains have delivered more than 30,000 metric tonnes (MT) of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to States and Union Territories so far across the country.
According to an official statement by the Ministry of Railways, so far, Indian Railways has delivered nearly 30,182 MT of LMO in more than 1,734 tankers to various states across the country.
A total of 421 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey.
More than 15,000 MT of liquid medical oxygen has been delivered to the southern states of the country by these special trains.
Oxygen Expresses delivered more than 3,600, 3,700, and 4900 MT of LMO in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu respectively.
Till Sunday afternoon, two loaded Oxygen Expresses are on run with more than 177 MT of LMO in 10 tankers.
Oxygen Express started deliveries of medical oxygen 50 days back on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT.
"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," said the ministry.
As per official data issued on Sunday, 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5722 MT in Delhi, 2354 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 3782 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 4941 MT in Tamil Nadu, 3664 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 2972 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 480 MT in Assam.
"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 the highest sense of urgency, operational teams of various zones are working round the clock in the 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," the statement said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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