Indian Railways delivers camel milk for autistic child during COVID-19 lockdown

MUMBAI, April 12 (Xinhua) — The Indian Railways transported 20 liters of camel milk responding to a request from a woman for her 3.5-year-old autistic child during a 21-day nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19, local media reported on Sunday.

The child, who is allergic to goat, cow and buffalo milk, had to face non-availability of camel milk, which forced the mother to tweet and tag Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by urging him to get camel milk or its powder from Sadri, 820 km north of Mumbai for the sake of her child.

“He (the child) survives on camel milk and limited quantity of pulses. When lockdown started, I didn’t have enough camel milk to last this long. Help me get camel milk or its powder from Sadri,” the woman tweeted, which went mildly viral enough to attract the attention of authorities, the DNA news reported.

Sadri is located in India’s northwestern state of Rajasthan, which is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population.

In less than a week, senior government officer Arun Bothra took to his official Twitter to inform that 20 liters of camel milk has reached Mumbai by train on the night of April 10, which was shared by the family with another needy person in the city.

Bothra also thanked Tarun Jain, the Chief Passenger Traffic Manager (CPTM) of Northwest Railways for ensuring an unscheduled train halt to pick up the container of camel milk on his Twitter account.

“We decided that parcel cargo train No. 00902, running between Ludhiana and Bandra in Mumbai, will be stopped at the Falna station in Rajasthan, although it does not have a scheduled halt there, the package will be picked up from Falna and delivered to the woman in Mumbai,” said a PTI report quoting Jain.