NEW DELHI: The Railways will insulate the roofs of COVID-19 isolation coaches deployed in areas which experience high temperatures to make their interiors cooler and more comfortable for patients, Railway Board Chairman VK Yadav said Monday.
The Railways has so far deployed 204 isolation coaches in four states.
They will work as COVID-19 care centres.
The Railways' isolation wards are all non-AC coaches.
"Non-AC coaches are more suitable for Covid isolation. In areas where the temperature is too high, roof insulation can be provided to bring down the temperature inside the coaches," said Yadav.
The Railways has already started a series of trials to insulate the roofs of 100 of the converted coaches in its Northern and North Central Zones as per standards prescribed by The Research Designs & Standards Organisation, a senior railway official told PTI.
The trials are expected to be concluded by this month and once the temperature is successfully reduced by 5-6 degrees Celsius inside the coaches, the Railways is planning to cover all the 5,000 coaches converted into isolation coaches, the official added.
The cost of insulating these coaches, by using a solution developed by IIT Mumbai, is estimated to be Rs 1 lakh per coach and can reduce temperature from 45 degrees to about 39 degrees.
Earlier, a trial was conducted on around 100 coaches of Humsafar Express, Jan Shatabdi Express, Antyodaya Express, using another Make-in-India product, 3M Scotchkote Polytech Exp RG700, which is a solar reflective coating which reduces heat inside any enclosure and can be applied on various metallic and non-metallic substrates, officials said.
Yadav, however, said the non-air conditioned coaches would be used as it is at most locations and the insulation would be done only if there is extreme temperature.
"The insulation bit is an additional requirement that the Railways is striving to provide. The patients should be managed within the given infrastructure. These coaches are suitable for transporting passengers from rural areas to the nearest hospital as well," he said.
He also said the suspected and confirmed Covid-19 patients will be kept in separate Covid coaches and these coaches are meant to be used when the health infrastructure of states gets exhausted due to any sudden spike in Covid-19 cases across the country.
The isolation coaches will be under the complete care of the chief medical officer of the state government, in the states where they will be deployed, he said.
For national capital Delhi, at least 50 coaches with 800 beds have already been stationed at Shakur Basti railway station but none of them are in use so far.
Another 500 more such isolation coaches for Covid-19 patients have to be deployed in Delhi and we are finalising the stations where they can be kept, Yadav said.
Referring to Shramik Special trains run by the Railways to transport migrants back to their home states, the Railway Board chairman said, We have transported more than 60 lakh migrants till date.
"Only a few migrants are left now. We had asked state governments to send us their demand of remaining trains on June 3 and we received a demand for 171 Shramik Special trains from various states.
We ended up running 222 Shramik Special trains till June 14. After the Supreme Court's order we have again sought their need from the state governments to meet the additional demand, Yadav said.
The average fare for Shramik Special trains was Rs 600 and around 60 lakh migrants have travelled so the total revenue can be calculated through that.
"The fare was as per normal mail express trains. The Railways recovered only 15 per cent of the cost of operating Shramik Special trains, he said.
He also said that limited suburban services were started in Mumbai -- 100 pairs in Central Railways, 73 pairs in Western Railways -- after a request from the Maharashtra government.
These trains will only be run for people involved in essential services, he said.