Long haul trains from Ernakulam to get bio toilets

Kochi: Commuters flooded railways with complaints on stinking toilets. Not anymore. Now, all long-haul trains from Ernakulam will have bio-toilets which the railways promises to be a solution to the issue.

“A total of 100 coaches maintained at the marshalling yard at Ernakulam are being retrofitted with bio-toilets, covering all long distance trains, on a war-footing. The work has already started and this is the first time such a large number of coaches are being facilitated with the eco-friendly toilet in one go,” said a senior railway officer.

A total of 372 coaches are being handled by the yard and already 74 of them have the facility. Across the Thiruvananthapuram division, so far a total of 279 coaches have the facility. Two trains are completely ‘Green’ trains (all toilets turned into bio-toilets) — the Ernakulam-Okha Express (Train No 16338), and the Kochuveli-Bangalore (Train No 16316) Express.

The railways aim to complete the process of converting normal toilets to eco-friendly ones by 2019 across the country.

However, some die-hard habits of commuters are giving a torrid time to divisional railway authorities in carrying out the ‘Go-Green’ initiative.

“The carefree attitude of passengers in disposing wastes into bio-toilet pan is resulting in the system getting easily damaged. According to our cleaning staff, cigarette butts, pan masala covers, sanitary napkins, silver foil food containers and liquor bottle caps comprise a large share of the wastes found to be blocking the tank and resulting in overflow of the toilets,” a senior officer said.

“Once toilets are blocked, human waste does not flow into the bio digester tank. The nozzle which is fitted under the closet develops defect,” the official said.