While pulling all stops to transport oxygen in a speedy manner from Bokaro steel city, Punjab government is faced with a peculiar problem as majority of its tankers — 14 out of 15 available — are not being allowed on the ‘Oxygen Express' for not meeting the height standards. As a result, the Punjab-bound tankers are being forced to take the road route which is taking them 3 days to reach the state instead of 30 hours by train.
With limited resources, Punjab government is not being able to avail “90 metric tonnes of daily oxygen quota” from Bokaro allocated to the state by the Centre.
Out of the 15 oxygen tankers that the state has, only one has been found to make it to ‘Oxygen Express', with its height meeting the ceiling cap of 3.5 metres, The Indian Express has learnt.
After the railways refused to carry the oxygen tankers airlifted from Punjab to Jharkhand on ‘Oxygen Express' citing height issue, the Punjab government went in for to “double check” the height measurements from legal meteorology department.
However, after the exercise, it was found that only one tanker was good enough to be permitted on ‘Oxygen Express'.
The height parameters by the railways have been fixed factoring in height of the tunnels, and the bridges on rail route.
From April 28, Punjab has airlifted two such tankers daily by the Indian Air Force to Jharkhand.
However, after being denied…
