Green Corridor Transports Mother’s Milk To Sick Babies 

Jaipur: In a first, a green corridor was created for transporting 62 litres of mother's milk from Rajasthan's Bhilwara district to save lives of newborns 150 km away in Ajmer.

The green corridor, usually created for swift transportation of organs for transplantation, was executed by the Bhilwara administration on Wednesday that facilitated a van carrying mother's milk. The van covered a 150-km distance in nearly two hours while maintaining a minus 20 degrees Celsius temperature required for transporting mother's milk.

Ajmer has no mother’s milk bank. Banked mother’s milk can help reduce mortality rate by 16 to 22 per cent. In Rajasthan, over 3,500 mothers have donated milk to the 11 milk banks operating in the state.

"Traffic police was deployed to provide zero traffic interference to the milk van. Necessary clearance from toll plaza was taken to avoid delays. A police vehicle escorted the milk van. "We monitored the transportation through GPS technology in Bhilwara," Additional Collector, Bhilwara, Anandilal Vaishnav said. He said a total of 62,000 ml of mother's milk voluntarily donated by lactating mothers at Bhilwara was transported to Ajmer Government Hospital, where a requirement had surfaced.

State consultant of government's milk bank project, Devendra Agarwal said, "We chose to transport mother's milk from Bhilwara, which had surplus units. It is for first time in the country where a corridor has been created for transporting mother's milk".

Government officials chose Ajmer as it has a maximum number of neonates admitted in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit in Ajmer division. The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is high in Ajmer and it is also happens to be the closest to Bhilwara. "Mother's milk is an elixir for neonates and an alternative for mother's who find it difficult to feed their babies due to some reasons, Agarwal said.