MUMBAI: India’s national rail system is converting 20,000 train coaches into isolation wards to help with the country’s anti-coronavirus measures, officials told Arab News on Sunday.
An average of 375 coaches are being converted daily and the work is being carried out in 133 locations across the country, officials from Indian Railways (IR) said.
India’s trains are used by more than 22 million people a day, but passenger services were suspended in an unprecedented move from March 22 to control the spread of coronavirus. Freight trains have continued to operate, however, carrying essential commodities to different parts of the country.
IR modified 2,500 coaches to meet half of its immediate target within 10 days of its announcement to convert the coaches into isolation wards.
It said that each coach was designed to have 16 beds, meaning 40,000 isolation beds were ready for use, and that the modified coaches could accommodate up to 320,000 beds in the event that hospitals and health centers lacked the required facilities.
IR has 1.3 million workers and divides its operations into 18 zones that cover India’s every nook and cranny. The zones are further categorised into subdivisions, with each covering an average track length of 1,000 km and comprising 15,000 staff. Western Railway spokesman, Ravinder Bhakar, said there was a target of modifying 460 coaches to support medical teams.
“The selected coaches are non-air-conditioned sleeper and general second class coaches,” he told Arab News. “In this mission, all workshops and coaches in the depots are working on it,” he said, adding that out of the 460 coaches, 170 would be modified by the Mumbai division while the rest would be handled by other states.
Bhakar highlighted some of the challenges in completing the conversion project such as procuring raw materials from open markets which were closed due to the lockdown, and dealing with a limited workforce.
“Yet, the IR is putting in its best efforts to complete the coaches so that there is no scarcity,” he said.
FASTFACT
IR has 1.3 million workers and divides its operations into 18 zones that cover India’s every nook and cranny.
The Central Railway has also started converting conventional passenger coaches into isolation wards with 250 out of 482 coaches ready for use, Shivaji Sutar, its chief public relations officer, told Arab News.
Guidelines from the Railway Board state that the modifications require authorities to remove the middle berth from the sleeper coaches to accommodate patients, install holding and hanging arrangements for medical equipment as well as oxygen cylinders, provide water taps and a store room as well as other measures.
IR officials said they went ahead with the initiative after detailed consultations with the Armed Forces Medical Services, the medical departments of various zonal railways and Ayushman Bharat, which is the National Health Authority.
