Covid care train coaches will be govt’s last option

As many as 320 railway coaches that were converted into Covid care centres with a capacity of 2,560 beds will remain idle for two more months as the state government has decided to use them only in the worst-case scenario.

The South Western Railway (SWR) spent Rs 30,000 on each coach, and readied 320 of them by the first week of May. Each coach can accommodate eight to 16 patients depending on how many tiers are used.

The government had to only appoint nodal officers to requisition the trains and the necessary manpower. But not a single coach has been used so far.

The SWR had agreed to depute paramedics and provide oxygen cylinders and other necessary items in the coaches, besides planning the segregation of biomedical waste.

An official in the SWR said they were ready to deploy the coaches whenever the government wanted them. “But as of now, we haven’t received any official request. We can make the necessary arrangements within a few hours of getting the request,” the official added.

Asked why the government was not utilising the coaches, a senior official attributed it to the “reluctance” of doctors and healthcare workers. “Many doctors say it’s difficult to access, and move around in, the coaches while wearing the PPP equipment. We have told the government that the coaches should be used only when we exhaust the beds elsewhere,” he said.

Meanwhile, a task force headed by IAS officer Rajender Kumar Kataria has been taking over public halls and hostels so as to convert them into Covid care centres.

Apart from setting up nearly 3,000 beds in nine centres, the government opened the country’s largest Covid facility at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) on Monday. About 5,000 beds are available in the initial phase, and there’s room for scaling up the infrastructure as and when the need arises.