Railways look to manufacture 1,000 PPEs every day across 17 workshops

New Delhi: Having undertaken production of personal protective equipment (PPE) type overalls, the national transporter is looking to make 1000 such pieces for railway doctors and paramedics at its workshops, every day. "Railways is considering to supply 50% of the innovated PPE garment to other medical professionals of the country," the Ministry of Railways said in a statement on Tuesday.
The national transporter last month asked zonal railways to consider manufacturing of medical equipment, as it ramps up preparedness to fight the Covid-19 outbreak in the country. An overall produced by railway's Jagadhari workshop in Haryana was recently cleared by a DRDO lab, authorised for the purpose. The approved design and material will now be used for making this protective overall by other workshops under different zones.

Around 17 workshops would be striving to contribute to this exercise and in the days to come, the production facilities can be further ramped up, the ministry said. Indian Railways is aiming to produce three sets per sewing machine per hour for as many days as required in its production units and workshops.

This internal effort of Railways is over and above a centralised request projected to the government of India and also indicated to HLL through Indent, the statement said.