Trains to bring city 205MT of O2 today
The national capital is scheduled to receive around 205 metric tonne (MT) of liquid medical oxygen on Tuesday morning, as the Indian Railways deployed 10 tankers aboard two Oxygen Express trains — its biggest single-day load since the special operation to ferry oxygen tankers began.
One train from Durgapur in West Bengal, ferrying 120 MT of liquid oxygen, was scheduled to reach the Tughlakabad railway station at 9.30am on Tuesday while the second, ferrying 85MT of liquid oxygen, was coming via Hapa (Gujarat) to Gurugram, the railway ministry said on Monday.
Officials said that the train from Hapa will halt at Gurugram, and the oxygen will be transferred to state government trucks and taken to Delhi.
Another Oxygen Express train, carrying 30.86MT from Angul in Odisha, was to arrive in Delhi by Monday night. Railway ministry officials said this was meant for supply in Haryana.
“Railways is set to deliver its biggest single day load of nearly 205MT to Delhi by tomorrow (Tuesday) morning,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
NEW DELHI:
The move is expected to give a breather to the Capital, which has been facing an acute shortage of oxygen supply for the past few weeks. Several hospitals have sent out desperate calls to authorities to replenish supplies which dropped precariously and threatened lives as health infrastructure crumbles under the pressure of an unprecedented rise in the number of cases.
On Sunday, Delhi received 454MT of oxygen in the last 24 hours, against its quota of 590MT. The Delhi government has said it needs 976MT of medical oxygen to add 1,200 ICU and 15,000 oxygen beds.
The Centre last week directed states to ensure free movement of vehicles carrying oxygen amid reports of some states diverting the vehicles for local use while hospitals sent out frantic appeals for emergency supplies.
“EG 2 (Empowered Group 2, formed by the PMO comprising officials from different ministries and experts) decides oxygen pipeline for states. EG 2 on Thursday set the ball rolling for mapping the sources of medical oxygen and their production capacity to match the requirement of 12 high-burden states, and has developed a framework to guide them,” railway ministry spokesperson said.