NASHIK: Indian Railways’ Oxygen Express train carrying seven tankers from Visakhapatnam reached Nashik Road railway station at 10:30 am. Three tankers were unloaded at Nagpur last night; the remaining four arrived at Nashik Road Railway Station. The train reached the Deolali freight depot first and got accompanied by tight police security. Later, the train finally arrived at Nashik Road. While two tankers will be utilized by Nashik city, the other two will be sent to Ahmednagar district.
The number of Covid-19 patients is increasing rapidly in the state. Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, and Aurangabad have the highest number of patients. Nashik district is facing a severe shortage of oxygen. The patients have been transferred elsewhere from many hospitals.
The administration was trying hard to address the oxygen shortage as there is a gap in supply and demand. However, with the arrival of four oxygen tankers, the situation is under control for the time being.
The railway is supplying oxygen to Maharashtra through roll-on-roll-off (RO-RO) service. The train with seven empty containers left Kalamboli goods yard in Navi Mumbai on Monday for Vizag. The empty tankers got loaded with liquid medical oxygen Visakhapatnam steel plant. The rolling stock for the same has been funded by the Indian Army and is maintained by the Railways. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra state governments had earlier approached the Railways Ministry to explore whether liquid medical oxygen tankers could be moved by the rail network. On the receipt of the request from the two states, the Railways explored the technical feasibility of transportation of liquid medical oxygen and decided that it needs to be transported through roll-on-roll-off service with road tankers placed on flat wagons.
District Collector inspects railway line
In coordination with the district administration, railway administration, and regional transport department, they planned to reach Oxygen Express to Deolali freight depot, informed District Collector Suraj Mandhare while inspecting the railway line at Nashik Road railway station on Friday. The district received two containers having a capacity of 25 KL of oxygen today through the train.
“In the last few days, we were getting 56 metric tonnes of oxygen instead of 85 metric tonnes of oxygen. The gap will be addressed by the additional 50 metric tonnes of oxygen containers that we received today.” Attempts are being made by the administration to stock some of the oxygen out of the total of 50 metric tonnes of oxygen at oxygen projects. So it is possible to use the stored oxygen in case of emergency, he also said. Two mobile vans have been made available on this railway line.” – District Collector Suraj Mandhare
