Secunderabad: South Central Railway delivers over 1 cr litres of milk

Secunderabad: With a view to prevent spread of COVID-19, Indian Railways has restricted passenger train services, however, to ensure the supply of essential commodities the South Central railway (SCR has come up with an innovative Doodh Duronto (a special train to transport milk) for balancing the milk supply across the country.

Under this initiative, special trains carrying milk tanks would be transporting milk from Renigunta to Hazarath Nizamuddin. Earlier, milk was transported by attaching milk tanks to the scheduled passenger trains. Accordingly, the first "Doodh Duronto Special" (special milk train) was dispatched from Renigunta to Delhi (H Nizamuddin) on March 26.

Generally, these special trains have been running with 6 Milk tankers, with each milk tanker having a capacity of 40,000 litres, totaling to 2.40 lakh ltrs of milk in a train. However, considering the demand, the train has been running every alternate day from Renigunta and the number of milk tanks has also gone upto 8 tanks in some trips as well. So far, around 42 trips of Doodh Duronto have been operated and transported 1.04 crore ltrs of milk. Incidentally, 262 RMTs have been transported through these Milk Trains till date.

Importantly, the "Doodh Duronto Special" runs at an average speed of 110 kms per hour without any halts and reaches the destination within 36 hrs. All necessary precautionary measures like sanitisation, physical distancing and staff hygiene are being followed in every trip.

Gajanan Mallya, General Manger, SCR, appreciated the efforts of staff and officers involved in transporting activities like loading, unloading and maintaining social distancing norms and coordinating with stakeholders. He expressed his happiness in crossing the one crore litres of milk being transported by SCR.