COVID-19: Indian Railways offers new Vadodara training institute as quarantine centre

The Indian Railways has identified the new hostel building of Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project training institute in Vadodara for creating a backup quarantine centre, the national transporter said on Thursday.

It includes 168 rooms having 334 beds and 12 big common rooms, which can be turned into quarantine centres for suspected coronavirus cases.

A total of 134 quarantine facilities with a capacity of 6,700 beds are available across Gujarat at present. As per the state health department records, 11,108 are under quarantine with more than 200 persons staying at the government quarantine facilities while over 10,500 are under home quarantine.

"The Indian Railways has identified the new hostel building of Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project training institute in Vadodara for creating a backup quarantine centre.

"It includes 168 rooms having 334 beds and 12 big common rooms," the railways tweeted.

The High Speed Rail Training Institute will be the training ground for all future high-speed rail workforce in India. It will train approximately 3,500 staff in various disciplines, including rolling stock, civil and track maintenance, electrical, signal and telecommunication station and train crew.

The state-of-the-art institute will be the most modern high-speed rail training institute equipped with 12 classrooms, three multipurpose rooms, six practice rooms, two large storage rooms, 250-seat auditorium and other most modern construction features.

This is the latest in a series of efforts by the railways to contribute to the efforts to fight the pandemic, which has so far claimed 16 lives.

Earlier, the Railway Board had issued instructions to all its production units to access feasibility of manufacturing items like simple hospital beds, medical trolleys for hospitals and quarantine facilities, and IV stands to contribute to the fight against COVID-19 outbreak.