Currency Sanitizers set up at Visakhapatnam railway station amid coronavirus scare

No matter how penetrative cashless transactions might have become today, transactions involving currency notes continue to remain inevitable at several places, more so for railways- at passenger reservation counters and parcels offices among other places. Furthermore, paper transactions in the form of receipts, tickets, files etc, are commonly observed at railway stations. Considering the necessity to sanitize, the Diesel Loco Shed at Visakhapatnam manufactured UVC (Ultraviolet C) Sanitizers with in-house sources. These Currency Sanitizers have now been put to use at Visakhapatnam railway station.

This latest feature by the Diesel Loco Shed works on the principle of Ultra Violet radiation emitted from a germicidal UVC lamp that kills up to 99.9% of most viruses and bacteria. The equipment performs the action by disrupting their DNA, leaving them unable to perform vital cellular functions.

In order to use the machine, a person has to place the reservation form and currency notes in the tray. The railway staff pulls the tray into the UVC light installed in the box and presses the push button that initiates the UVC light’s action along with the buzzer indication. After 10 seconds, a green light indicates the completion of the sanitization. Thereafter, the railway personnel pulls the tray towards him/her and collects the money and puts the reservation tickets and change, if any, into the tray. The official repeats the sanitisation process before pushing the tray towards the passenger. Furthermore, this machine can also be used for sanitizing mobile phones, wallets and other items which fit inside the tray.

Currency Sanitizers at Visakhapatnam railway station:

After going through the successful working of the equipment, under the guidance of Waltair Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), Chetan Kumar Shrivastava and Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer (Diesel), Santosh Kumar Patro, the East Coast Railways (ECoR) requested for the fabrication of 150 such Currency Sanitizers, out of which 24 machines have already been supplied. The ECoR is planning to install these UVC Currency Sanitizers at all the ticket counters under its jurisdiction.

Being one of the largest diesel sheds of the Indian Railways, Diesel Loco Shed at Visakhapatnam previously manufactured masks, thousand of litres of hand sanitizer for railway staff, Sanitizing Tunnel, leg operated (hands-free) hand wash booths, sensor-based hand sanitizer dispensers, and other equipment to combat the coronavirus pandemic.