Amid rising cases, demand for Covid-19 care coaches returns
The Covid-19 isolation coaches were designed to be used for patients with mild symptoms in areas where states have “exhausted the facilities” and need to augment capacities for isolation
Months after being kept on standby, the Indian Railways’ Covid-19 isolation coaches are back in demand amid rising cases. The railways’ western zone has received a demand from Nandurbar, a Maharashtra district close to Gujarat border, for around 95 coaches and 1,500 beds.
“Each Covid-19 care rake will have 20 coaches, comprising modified Sleeper and General coaches; each coach can accommodate 16 patients.The coaches will be suitably positioned as mutually agreed upon between the district administration of Nandurbar and divisional administration of Mumbai division of Western Railways,” a memorandum of understanding signed between Western Railways and the district authorities on April 11 noted.
The district is currently under lockdown till April 15 and has reported close to 400 cases daily since March. Maharashtra on Monday reported 51,751 new Covid-19 cases, its lowest one-day count since April 5, taking the tally to 3,458,996. The state also reported 258 fatalities on Monday, taking toll to 58,245. Of the 258 deaths, 169 occurred in the previous 48 hours, 59 in the past week and the remaining are from the period before that.
The Covid-19 isolation coaches were designed to be used for patients with mild symptoms in areas where states have “exhausted the facilities” and need to augment capacities for isolation of both suspected and confirmed cases, according to the railways.
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The railways will be responsible for the basic infrastructure and maintenance of the premises like cleaning and sanitisation of platforms, provision of housekeeping materials like linen and blankets, management of bio-toilets, power and electric supply arrangements, watering, communication facilities and signage and marking of different areas. It will also provide catering and oxygen cylinders in the coaches, it said in its guidelines for the coaches last year.
The Centre built its first prototype of a Covid coach in April last year; by May it was ready to deploy 5,231 railway coaches across 215 stations in 15 states considering the possibility of an increase in cases of Covid-19.
But with little demand from the states for these coaches, on May 21, 2020 the Railway Board wrote to its zones to reconvert 60% of the Covid-19 coaches into normal ones to be utilised on Shramik Special trains launched to ferry stranded migrant workers back to their homes in the Indian hinterland. Since the last few months they have remained unoccupied.