Oxygen Expresses Continue To Deliver, More Than 34,760 MT Of LMO Received By States So Far

With Tamil Nadu receiving the highest emergency medical aid, 474 Oxygen Expresses with 1,976 tankers have delivered more than 34,760 million tonnes of liquid medical oxygen across the country.

Tamil Nadu has received more than 6,476 MT of LMO as the Oxygen Expresses crossed the mark of 20,000 MT of delivery in southern states of the country.

Oxygen Expresses delivered more than 3,700, 4,800 and 4,700 MT of LMO in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively.

It is Indian Railways' endeavour to deliver as much LMO as possible in the shortest time possible to the requesting states.

Emergency medical relief by Oxygen Expresses have reached 15 states including Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam thus far.

According to the Railways, 614 MT of oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3,797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5,791 MT in Delhi, 2,354 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 4,697 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 6,476 MT in Tamil Nadu, 4,824 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 3,791 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 560 MT in Assam.

Till now Oxygen Expresses have offloaded LMO in around 39 cities/towns in 15 states across the country namely Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, Bareilly, Gorakhpur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Sagar, Jabalpur, Katni and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Mumbai and Solapur in Maharashtra, Hyderabad in Telangana, Faridabad and Gurugram in Haryana, Tuglakabad, Delhi Cantonment and Okhla in Delhi, Kota and Kanakpura in Rajasthan, Bengaluru in Karnataka, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Nellore, Guntur, Tadipatri and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ernakulam in Kerala, Tiruvallur, Chennai, Tuticorin, Coimbatore and Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Bhatinda and 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 the States 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 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 the fastest possible time frame.

Technical stoppages have been reduced to one minute for crew changes over different sections.

Tracks are kept open and high alertness is maintained to ensure that Oxygen Expresses keep zipping through.

However, the Railways maintains that all this is done in a manner that speeds of other freight trains doesn't get reduced.