Open-discharge toilets in railways would be a thing of the past soon, going by the railway budget proposals announced on Wednesday. Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi said railways would start installing green toilets in 2,500 coaches in the next one year.
Presenting the railway budget, Trivedi said corrosion from night soil being discharged from toilets on tracks cost the ministry Rs 350 crore annually. “There is an urgent need to replace the conventional open-discharge toilets with green toilets so as to have a cleaner, hygienic and safer railway ecosystem,” he said. “Bio-toilets developed by the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) are currently under extended trial to test their efficacy and suitability. In the next year, 2,500 coaches will be equipped with these bio-toilets.”
Trials with retention-evacuation type toilets such as vacuum toilets are also being planned on a few premium trains. Based on experience, “more number of coaches would be equipped” with such green toilets.
Other than green toilets, Railways is looking at paperless journey options. Railways would start accepting SMS on mobile phones as proof of valid reservation, thus saving paper. It has also proposed introduction of ‘green train’ in north Bengal, which would have low emissions diesel locomotive and bio-toilets. The country’s largest transporter is further planning to set up 200 remote railway stations as “green energy stations”. These will be powered entirely by solar energy. The ministry is also undertaking other clean projects, including 72-Mw capacity windmill plants in the wind-rich areas of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
In territories where there is no electricity, railways would provide solar lighting system at 1,000 manned level-crossing gates to improve illumination and enhance safety of road users.
For checking the pollution levels of the diesel-locomotives, a mobile emission test car would be introduced. Railways would also commission two bio-diesel plants in 2012-13 at Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Tondiarpet (Chennai).
