The Diesel Loco Shed in Visakhapatnam, the biggest loco shed in Asia in terms of holding capacity, has come out with an ultraviolet radiation-based disinfection sanitiser for currency notes, papers and tools.
The DLS staff have come up with several products like preparation of thousands of litres of hand sanitiser for the use of employees, masks, sanitising tunnel, leg-operated (hands-free) handwash booths and sensor-based hand sanitisation dispensers.
Railways deal with currency notes at Passenger Reservation Counters and parcel offices. There are also paper transactions in the form of receipts, tickets, and files. It is the need of the hour to have sanitisers to check the spread of the COVID-19 infection at various vulnerable locations.
The fabrication of UV sanitisers was done by DLS staff under the guidance of Waltair Divisional Railway Manager Chetan Kumar Shrivastava, under the supervision of Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Diesel) Santosh Kumar Patro, with in-house available sources.
The equipment works on the principle of UV radiation emitted from a Germicidal UVC lamp that kills up to 99.9% of most viruses, airborne bacteria and mold spores by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA.
East Coast Railway sought fabrication of 150 such currency sanitiser equipment to be provided at all ticket counters across its jurisdiction. As many as 24 pieces have already been supplied and the remaining will be done by July 10, according to Senior Divisional Commercial Manager G. Suneel Kumar.
