Secunderabad, Sep 29 (IANS): The South Central Railway (SCR) has so far shipped 3 crore litres of milk from Andhra Pradesh's Renigunta to New Delhi via "Doodh Duronto Special" trains amid the Covid pandemic, a railway official said.

"Doodh Duronto Special, introduced during the lockdown period from Renigunta to Hazrat Nizamuddin to supply milk to the people of the nation's capital, crossed the 3 crore litres mark on Monday," SCR spokesman Ch. Rakesh said.

"Transportation of milk from Renigunta to New Delhi plays an important role in balancing the milk supply across the nation," he added.

Rakesh said that the milk to be transported was sourced by a National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) unit from more than 3,000 pooling points spread across 13,000 villages in and around the state's Chittoor district.

Introduced on March 26, Doodh Duronto Specials ran on alternate days till July 15, when they started operating daily.

Each milk train has six tankers of 40,000 litres capacity each, totalling 2.4 lakh litres milk per train. To reach the 3 crore litre milestone, the railway zone operated 126 trains, ferrying 751 tankers.

In addition to milk, the train, via Kacheguda in Hyderabad, also used to add some parcel vans, ferrying other commodities, which were transported to several other places.