The Ministry of Railways has advanced the target for 100% completion of installing Bio-toilets in coaches to December 2018. The decision was announced at Conference of Parties (COP-23) in Bonn, Germany.
Ravindra Gupta, Member (Rolling Stock), Ministry of Railways, who is on an official tour to Germany, emphasized on the innovative steps taken by Indian Railways by way of bio-toilets for having an open discharge free in line with mission of “Swachh Bharat”.
Bio-toilets are a significant installation for managing human waste, as they would be fitted below the coach floor underneath the lavatories and would be incorporated with an anaerobic digestion process to digest human excreta. The collected waste will then be acted upon by a colony of anaerobic bacteria, thereby converting the waste into water and biogases (mainly Methane and Carbon Dioxide).
In line with Swachh Bharat and Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaigns, bio-toilets were introduced to curb the usual unhygienic practices on trains. Currently, more than 900 trains have been upgraded with bio-toilets in either all or some coaches of the trains.
