Railways to launch trial run of vacuum toilets on Dibrugrah Rajdhani from today

Pic Courtesy - Wikipedia

New Delhi: One of the worst experiences that most people have while traveling by trains in India are the stinking toilets.

However, dirty washrooms on trains may soon become a thing of the past.

The Railways is all set to launch the trial run of vacuum toilet on Dibrugarh Rajdhani from Monday.

Fitted in the First AC coach at an estimated cost of about Rs 3 lakh, the vacuum toilet is also equipped with the bio-digester system.

Vacuum toilets are currently operational in aircraft.

The environment-friendly vacuum-based toilets consume much less water than conventional ones despite improved efficiency of the flush, aiding water conservation efforts.

Besides, such toilets would also help prevent corrosion of rail tracks.

According to the plan, railways will initially install 80 such toilets on a Shatabdi Express train, an official had said yesterday, as per PTI.

Indian Railway has floated global tenders for installing the toilets at a cost of Rs 25 crore and multinational companies from Germany, USA, Denmark and Spain have evinced interest in manufacturing and installing the system, the official had added.

A vacuum toilet will also be installed at New Delhi station.

Currently, premier trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi are equipped with controlled discharge toilet system which prevent disposal of waste at stations.

"Waste is automatically discharged after trains gather a minimum speed of 30 km per hour," the official had further pointed out.

So far, railways have replaced 17,388 conventional toilets with bio-toilets.

About 17,000 more are to be replaced by the end of this year. 

(With PTI inputs)