CR wants more doctors on Duronto Express

Railways have expedited the process to recruit general medical practitioners in Duronto Express trains, three days after national-level volleyball player Arunima Sinha was allegedly thrown out of a running train. Shashank Rao reports.

Railways have expedited the process to recruit general medical practitioners in Duronto Express trains, three days after national-level volleyball player Arunima Sinha was allegedly thrown out of a running train.

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The Central Railway (CR) will start the process of interviewing from May. CR has begun looking for doctors who are already offering their services to a state or central government agency or a public sector undertaking.

The CR is seeking doctors for its Duronto Express trains from Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Terminus to Ernakulam and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to Nagpur. These doctors will be selected on a contract basis for one year. “Because of the increase in frequency and the introduction of newer routes for Duronto Express trains, there is a need for more doctors on-board,” said chief PRO, V Malegaonkar of CR.

They are also looking to hire doctors to be posted at Dadar station after the Bombay high court directed the railways to make it a model station for providing all emergency medical facilities.

The railway ministry had announced last year that it will be mandatory for doctors to travel on-board Duronto Express trains. They started it on a pilot basis on the Western Railway, South Central Railway and South Eastern Railway. On the WR it first began on the Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Duronto Express train.

A doctor and paramedical staff have to travel in the train along with medicines and equipment like glucometer, ECG machine, nebulizer and oxygen cylinder.