The Indian Railways planned to produce 1.3 lakh personal protective equipment (PPEs) for healthcare professionals to fight against Covid-19 within May.

Of them, 30,000 will be produced by the end of April and the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) plans to make 2,000.

The chief public relations officer of Northeast Frontier Railway, Subhanan Chanda, said, “In order to fill the gap in availability and requirements of PPEs, workshops under NFR has also started making PPEs as per the specifications provided. Prototypes of PPEs made at New Bongaigaon and Dibrugarh workshops with the help of currently available infrastructure have been tested by railway medical professionals. Already nearly 150 sets of PPEs have been made in the past two to three days. The NFR plans to make 2,000 sets of PPEs of the 30,000 targeted by Indian Railways.”

Chanda said during the lockdown period from March 23 to April 16, NFR ran more than 408 freight rakes to and from various parts of our country. Items carried were unloaded in the goods sidings of various states within the jurisdiction of the NFR.

The NFR has also started small parcel trains for movement of items in small quantities by businessmen or state government departments and 25 parcel express trains from various locations carrying items like milk, milk products, food and baby food have been unloaded at various locations under the NFR till Thursday.

The railways also converted more than 5,000 passenger coaches into mobile quarantine or isolation facilities.