NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways has converted 4,002 train coaches as a COVID-19 care-cum-isolation facility to provide assistance to state governments amid surging coronavirus cases in the country.
The Union Minister of Railways, Piyush Goyal on Sunday shared a couple of images of train coaches converted as a COVID-19 care facility in Maharashtra and said, “Railways is devoting all its resources for fighting COVID-19.
Isolation coaches have started functioning at Nandurbar, Maharashtra with COVID-19 patients being admitted.”
The Ministry of Railways has deployed 94 covid care coaches in Maharashtra’s Nandurbar district. At least six COVID-19 patients have been admitted in NDB (Nandurbar) rake so far.
According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare guidelines, these converted railway coaches can be used by the state governments when they will exhaust their own medical facilities.
In addition to the overall transformation, the process of conversion entails removal of middle berth, conversion of toilets into shower rooms.
The coaches will be allocated to state governments on request, the ministry said in a release. It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea to convert the railway coaches into a covid care facility, it added.
“As soon as this revolutionary idea was communicated to the Railways team, it operated in mission mode to ensure that PM’s vision executes to help the citizens at the earliest,” the release reads.
Last year, during the first wave of coronavirus, Indian Railways had deployed several COVID Care coaches in various states including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh.Agencies
