With the Covid-19 continuing to march aggressively, the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) is all prepared to provide rail coaches for isolation of asymptomatic patients, officials said here on Friday. While the WR has kept on standby 128 coaches, CR has reserved 25, totalling to 153 coaches where the patients can be shifted as Mumbai's 'active cases' inches close to the one-lakh mark.

It may be recalled that last year, at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the Indian Railways had converted over 5,000 rail coaches for Corona patients across the country. However, till now railway coaches were not utilized in Mumbai or Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) - both the worst-hit in the country - but this year in view of the steep increase in Covid patients, the isolation coaches may be used, officials said.