As India battles the resurgent and seemingly more contagious wave of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the railways turned nearly 4,000 train coaches to Covid care units with almost 64,000 beds to be used by the states. Currently, 169 coaches have been handed over to various states for Covid care, said the Union ministry of railways on Tuesday.
For Maharashtra, the state worst hit by Covid-19 in India, the railways said a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the divisional railway manager of Nagpur and the commissioner of the Nagpur municipal corporation to meet the new demand for coaches in the district.
Accordingly, the Railways will deploy the Covid care rake with 11 coaches, comprising of modified sleepers with each coach having the capacity to accommodate 16 patients. The coaches will be equipped with the necessary medical infrastructure by the state health authorities with the Railways devising segmentation of space and utility for medical personnel in line with the MoU, besides taking care of sanitation and catering arrangements,” the railways said in the statement.
Isolation coaches at the Ajni ICD area are also being mobilised to meet the state demands, it said. The facilities, devised by the railways in the states of Maharashtra, Delhi, and Madya Pradesh, have cumulatively registered 98 admissions and 28 subsequent discharges. The railways registered 17 admissions and six discharges, and presently 70 patients are utilizing the isolation coaches facility, as per the latest reports.