The most common sight in the Indian railway stations is the railway tracks littered with excreta and all kinds of dirt. It is because of the flush toilets, currently used in most of the train, which dumps the human waste directly on the track without any treatment, creating unhygienic conditions in the stations, which can lead to various kinds of diseases, and corrode the tracks.
According to an estimate, India Railways
generates 6000 tonnes of solid waste from trains and passengers at railway
stations every day, out of which about 4000 tonnes of human waste is dumped
directly onto rail tracks. With so much of train train-traveling population, it was a
serious issue of concern for Indian Railways.
Indian Railways, with the help of DRDO, developed a bio-toilet. This is somewhat
similar to the biodigester already in use for the Indian troops serving in Siachen
Glacier or other high-altitude regions where the normal process of degradation is not
possible due to the very low temperature. The bio-toilets contain a colony of anaerobic bacteria, kept
in a container under the lavatories that converts human waste into water and a small amount of gas. The gases are released into the atmosphere, and the water is
discharged after chlorination onto the track.
There are many advantages of
using bio-toilets. The anaerobic bacteria used in the green toilets can easily
survive in extreme climate conditions, and the normal disinfectant used by the railway
for cleansing doesn't kill these bacteria. Currently, there are
35,000 bio-toilets installed in 10,000 railway coaches. Under its Swachh
Rail-Swachh Bharat programme, Indian railways aims to install 1,40,000 bio-toilets
in all 55,000 coaches by 2019 and make the entire rail network a zero-discharge zone. This is a perfect combination of 'Make in India' and 'Swachh Bharat'.