New Delhi: Indian Railways has geared up it’s workshops to meet the challenge of providing protection to it’s front line medical workers and other operational staff persons, from the Covid- 19 pandemic.

Railway workshops have manufactured PPE coveralls, sanitizer, masks, cots in-house. Raw material for manufacturing of these items was also procured by the field units. By 24th June, the workshops produced 1.91 lakh PPE gowns, 66.4 kl sanitizer, 7.33 lakh masks, said a Railway press release.

PPE coverall target for the month of June and July are fixed as 1.5 lakhs each which is likely to be revised upwards, said the release.

The Railway, to further strengthen it’s preparedness, has placed an order for PPE coverall (22 lakhs), N95 Masks (22.5 lakh) and Hand sanitizer 500 ml (2.25 lakh) on M/s HLL Life Care, an unit under union health ministry.

Ministry of Railways has designated 50 Railway Hospitals as Covid Dedicated Hospitals and Covid Dedicated Health Centers. Facilities at these hospitals were upgraded through procurement of medical equipments and other items to meet the challenge of Covid pandemic.

Railway has converted 5231 coaches to isolation coaches to serve as the Covid Care Centres to augment the capacity of health infrastructure in the country. As many 960 coaches have already been placed in service at several locations based on the requests received from the States.