East Central Railway, General Manager Lalit Chandra Trivedi addressed the print and electronic media of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh at a press conference held through webinar on Friday.
He apprised the media persons about the steps taken to prevent corona infection on trains and stations in view of the current conditions of Covid-19. The GM said that with the cooperation of the State government, the railways is fully prepared to face any challenge. He also appealed to the passengers to make 100 per cent compliance of the Covid standards.
Trivedi said in view of the second wave of corona, people of Bihar/Jharkhand State living in other cities of the country are coming to their homes.
“In such a situation, taking lessons from the last time, we have made full preparations for this with the help of the State Government so that no passenger has to face any kind of difficulties in traffic. All possible measures are being taken to prevent the spread of this infection, including thermal screening of passengers at all major stations by coordinating with the State Government. CCTV has already been installed at most of the stations of ECR, with the help of crowd management at the stations. Along with this, continuous announcements are also being made at the stations to bring awareness among the passengers for the observance of the Covid Protocol.
The GM denied the misleading reports that trains were not available in Mumbai and said that this is absolutely wrong. “We have adequate trains and are operating as required. The general manager said that about 180 special trains are already operational. In order to avoid any inconvenience to the passengers, apart from the trains already running, 17 special trains are being operated from Mumbai. Out of this, 14 trains will come to different stations of ECR while three trains will pass here, stopping at various stations of ECR.
Apart from this, 28 more special trains will be operational from Mumbai for various stations. Most of these special trains will reach East Central Railway stations, while some special trains will stop at ECR stations to reach their destination. Proper arrangements have been made at both departure and destination of trains,” he said. He appealed to the passengers going out or coming from outside not to take any kind of apprehension regarding the rail journey.
Speaking on the question of rescue of railway personnel from Corona, the General Manager said that most of the front line employees including pilots, guards, TTEs have been vaccinated. Also, there are sufficient numbers of corona vaccines available in all the railway hospitals in ECR and vaccines are being given to railwaymen.