The Delhi-NCR region would serve as the site of a pilot project by the union health ministry to develop a dedicated rapid transit corridor for the transportation of human organs by metro trains.
Given that harvested organs like the cornea, heart, kidney, and liver from a brain-dead patient have a limited life of six to twelve hours if preserved in good condition, the goal is to minimise time lost during organ delivery by road. 20 cities in India have 860 kilometres of operating metro lines. The action was taken following the lifting of the organ transportation prohibition by the urban development ministry.
Anil Kumar, Director of the National Organ & Tissue Transplant Organization (NOTTO) said, “Health ministry wrote to DMRC to allow transportation of organs via metro. The ministry has had multiple rounds of consultation with the relevant stakeholders for the last few months. DMRC sent us the proposal for review, and we reviewed it. And finally, it has been approved. This step will save a lot of time in transporting the human organs from one hospital to the other hospital in a quick time for example- when there is massive traffic on the road or in flood like in Delhi-NCR.”
