In a first, UV rays disinfects Lucknow metro

Sanitising the metro using UV rays is an unprecedented initiative in the direction of ensuring safe journey of passengers by the metro and sanitization through UV lamps will also reduce the cost by 40 times.

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh):The Lucknow Metro has set another record by becoming the first metro project in the country to use ultraviolet (UV) rays to sanitise train coaches, a senior official said on Friday.

The UP Metro Rail Corporation (UPMRC) has taken inspiration from the New York Metro's experiment to sanitise trains with UV lamp rays, it said.

"Passenger safety and comfort have always been our topmost priority and whatever we do is in sync with our objective to provide the safest and the most convenient mode of public transport to the people," UPMRC Managing Director Kumar Keshav said.

Lucknow Metro has become the pioneer of metro train sanitisation through UV technology, the UPMRC said.

"When we started token sanitation by UV radiation, we received overwhelming response and appreciation from our passengers. Now, with train sanitation by ultraviolet rays, we want to assure all our passengers that their Lucknow Metro was, is and will always be the safest mode of transport," Keshav said.

"We are seeing a significant increase in ridership every day and it is this confidence of our commuters that pushes us to put in more and more efforts to make their travel enjoyable and hassle-free," he added.

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Keshav said that Lucknow Metro was also the first metro project in the country to have started token sanitisation through ''UV box'' which was developed in-house.

Giving a boost to the Make in India mission, Lucknow Metro in consultation with an Indian firm that deals in tube lights used in sanitation apparatus, has developed a UV sanitisation apparatus which works on ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) disinfection method, the UPMRC said.

It uses short-wavelength ultraviolet (Ultraviolet C or UV-C) light of 254 nm UV-C to kill or inactive micro-organisms by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA, it said.

The apparatus which was certified by DRDO in October, last year, sanitises the entire coach in seven minutes and as added care, "We are sanitising each coach for 15 minutes", the release said.

The best part of this initiative is that it is very economical, costing 1/40th of the cost involved in the sprinkling of manual sanitisers, it added.

All the coaches of a metro train can be sanitized within 30 minutes through this equipment being used in UPMRC.

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