Railway Ministry spokesperson D.J. Narain said that the approaching cyclone did not dampen the spirit of railways.

 

"Inspite of upcoming cyclone, Railways ran, early morning, two Oxygen Expresses from Gujarat to beat high winds and deliver 150 MT of oxygen to the nation," he said, adding that one Oxygen Express from Vadodara left at 4 a.m. with 2 RORO trucks and 45 MT of LMO for delivery in Delhi region while the other left Hapa at 5.30 a.m. with six tankers loaded with 106 MT of oxygen for deliveries to Uttar Pradesh and Delhi region.

 

Narain said that railways has not let the cyclone affect its "Mission Oxygen Supply" and is carrying LMO from its terminals at Hapa, Mundra and Vadodara in Gujarat's cyclone affected areas without any break.

 

He said that the Western Railway carried 137 tonnes on May 16 and 151 tonnes on May 17 from Gujarat to various parts of country.

 

Oxygen Expresses have been delivering nearly 800 MT of LMO each day for last few days, he added.

 

Narain also said that the first Oxygen Express from Jharkhand's Bokaro to Punjab is also set to reach Phillaur at 7 p.m. on Monday with two tankers with 41.07 MT of LMO.

 

Criss-crossing the country, railways is picking up oxygen from places like Hapa and 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, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in complex operational route planning scenarios.

 

He said that 521 MT of oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, 2,652 MT in UP, 431 MT in MP, 1,290 MT in Haryana, 564 MT in Telangana, 40 MT in Rajasthan, 361 MT in Karnataka, 200 MT in Uttarakhand, 231 MT in Tamil Nadu, 40 MT in Punjab, 118 MT in Kerala and 3,734 MT in Delhi.