The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has planned to make 2,000 sets of personal protective equipment this month to meet the growing demand for such coveralls for healthcare personnel who get directly exposed to the COVID-19 disease when working amongst infected patients, an official said on Thursday.
The NFR has already made about 150 sets of PPEs in its workshops as per the specification provided, he said.
Prototypes of PPEs have been made at the New Bongaigaon and Dibrugarh workshops of the NFR with the help of presently available infrastructure,CPRO Subhanan Chanda said.
These prototypes have been tested by medical professionals of the railway, he said.
“Nearly 150 sets of PPEs have already been made in the last 2-3 days, and NFR plans to make 2,000 such sets, out of 30,000 targeted by Indian Railways,” the CPRO said.
The prototype coveralls have been approved with the highest grade at the authorised DRDO laboratory at Gwalior, he added.
The Railways’ production facilities, workshops and field units across the country have also begun manufacturing of the PPEs to meet the target of 30,000 such coveralls in April, and it plans to make 1 lakh more in May.
Mr. Chanda said the Railways’ doctors, nurses and health workers are working amongst infected patients and they are vulnerable to the infection.
He said they need to be provided with a special kind of impervious coveralls and these are required in very large numbers as each can be used only once, he said.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways has converted more than 5,000 of its passenger coaches into quarantine and isolation facilities within a very short period, he added.
