Railways: Low occupancy ‘good sign’

nNEWDELHI: Indian railway’s Covid care coaches have seen extremely low occupancy rates in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh till date, but the railway ministry sees this as a “good sign”, pointing out that their facilities were only “the last resort” for the state governments.

Data collected from the states by the Centre shows that in Delhi, railways deployed 503 coaches with 8048 beds. For every three beds, oxygen cylinders were also provided. “But cumulative admission till yesterday was 208 and number of patients in these beds on Wednesday was 130”, said a top-ranking official of the Modi government, citing reports sent by states to the Centre’s Covid management team.

Similarly, in Uttar Pradesh, as against 3784 beds, cumulative admission was 256 and as on Wednesday, not a single bed was occupied, added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Centre built its first prototype of a Covid coach in March ; 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 states for these coaches, on May 21, 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 migrants to their homes in the Indian hinterland.

With the number of cases rising, it was only in June that some states started using these coaches. “At first, it was one of the best innovative and disruptive ideas, but it did not find many takers. Similarly, attaching hospitals to hotels was a good idea but a report from the states show that hotels didn’t get as many patients as was expected,” said a second

official.

His reference is to the move to use some hotels to house and treat milder cases of the infection.

A third official in the Covid management team said that coaches were largely unused as they didn’t have air-conditioning, were difficult to access, and that states were not keen to use them, a railway spokesperson maintained that lack of occupancy was not due to “any issue” with the Covid care coaches.

Railway board chairman VK Yadav underlined, “The most important aspect of the Covid care coaches was that the health ministry said they are to be used only where states have exhausted their facilities and needs to augment capacities for isolation of both suspect and confirmed Covid cases.”

“These coaches are provided on the demand of the state governments. We pray to God that these Covid care coaches are used as little as possible and that spread of Covid is controlled. The advantage of these coaches is they can be moved from one place to another. The second advantage is that they can be used to transport the patients. I believe it’s a good sign that they are being used less as cases are reducing and states are able to control,” he said.

The rail ministry spokesperson added that the Covid care coaches were meant for very mild cases and aimed to be used as care centres where the states have exhausted the facilities and needs to augment capacities for isolation of both suspect and confirmed Covid cases.

According to health ministry’s guidelines, the isolation coaches were meant to be under the complete care of the chief medical officer of the concerned state. The state administration were to provide doctors and paramedics while the railways would deploy two liaison officers in each location of coaches to assist state government officials.