1st Oxygen Express to Delhi to depart from Chhattisgarh amid severe shortage in capital
Facing acute shortage of oxygen supply due to the rising number of Covid 19 cases, more states are seeking railways’ assistance for delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) via ‘Oxygen Express’ trains.
Four cryogenic tankers carrying Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) on board the ‘Oxygen Express’ train are scheduled to depart from Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) steel plant in Raigargh, Chhattisgarh for New Delhi tonight, the railway ministry said on Sunday.
“One Oxygen Express train carrying four tankers (around 70 metric tonnes of LMO) will depart tonight for Delhi Cantt. from JSPL, Raigarh,” a railway ministry spokesperson said.
The Indian Railways has so far moved 10 oxygen tankers of total 150 MT with 9 more on the move, railway board chairman Suneet Sharma said at a press conference on Sunday.
This comes at a time when Delhi hospitals are struggling with an acute shortage of oxygen for the sixth consecutive day with some ending up turning away Covid-19 patients. On Saturday, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal sent an urgent SOS to chief ministers of all states, requesting them to send to the national capital whatever surplus oxygen and tankers that they could spare.
With Delhi’s daily oxygen allocation being 480MT, Kejriwal has said that the city currently requires about 700MT, given the massive surge in fresh Covid-19 cases -- the national capital has been reporting nearly or over 25,000 cases every day for the past one week at least.
Facing acute shortage of oxygen supply due to the rising number of Covid 19 cases, more states are seeking railways’ assistance for delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) via ‘Oxygen Express’ trains. The national carrier has planned more Oxygen Express trains to Andhra Pradesh, UP, Maharashtra, Telangana, Delhi and MP in the coming weeks.
The first Oxygen Express train departed from Mumbai to Vizag on April 19. From April 22 to 24, four trains have also operated from Lucknow to Bokaro and back, the railways said adding that it has delivered around 150 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen so far. Each tanker has a capacity of around 15-16 MT.
The Indian Railways last week decided to deploy the first-of-a-kind ‘Oxygen Express’ trains over the next few days to transport Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) and Oxygen cylinders in bulk along key corridors, amid high demand from states grappling with a deadly second wave of Covid-19 cases.
With several states reporting a shortage of oxygen, the government last week directed them to ensure uninterrupted movement of medical oxygen carrying vehicles along their borders and said they must not impose any curbs on production and supply of the essential public health commodity anywhere.
A meeting was held between Railway Board officials and state transport commissioners and representatives of the industry on April 17 on issues related to transportation of liquid medical oxygen.
The railway ministry last week also approved the transportation of liquid medical oxygen in cryogenic tankers under its Roll on-Roll off model as a special case following a request from the Maharashtra government.