New Delhi, May 24 (FN Bureau) Indian Railways on Monday said that it has delivered the highest ever single day load of more than 1142 MT of Oxygen on Sunday to various states. Previous best was 1118 MT on May 20. Noting that so far, Indian Railways has delivered more than 16023 MT of LMO in more than 977 tankers to various states across the country, it also said that 247 Oxygen Express trains have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various States.
As on Monday, a total of 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3649 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 633 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 4600 MT in Delhi, 1759 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 1063 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 1024 MT in Tamil Nadu, 730 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 246 MT in Kerala, 976 MT in Telangana and 80 MT in Assam. The officials in the Railways also said that 12 loaded Oxygen Expresses are on the run with more than 920 MT of LMO in 50 tankers. Amongst the Southern States, delivery of LMO to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka crossed 1000 MT each.
The Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 30 days back exactly on April 24 in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT. Within one month time Indian Railways has delivered more than 16000 MT of LMO to 14 states across the country. The Railways has mapped different routes with Oxygen supply locations and keeps itself ready with any emerging need of the States. States provide tankers to the national carrier for bringing LMO and criss crossing the country, it has been picking up oxygen from places like Hapa, Baroda, Mundra in the West and Rourkela, Durgapur, Tatanagar, Angul in the East and then delivering it to States of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Assam in complex operational route planning scenarios.
Describing that that the operation of an Oxygen Express has been a complex operation, it has created new standards and kept the average speed of these critical freight trains above 55 in most cases over long distances, using a ‘Green Corridor’ across all zones to ensure earliest delivery to various locations, even the technical stoppage has been reduced to ‘one minute’ only, the Railway officials said.