South Central Railway's water recycling saving crores

Hyderabad: South Central Railway will be saving 8.4 lakh litres of water a day at two of its railway stations in the city by recycling water. The water saved can be diverted to homes by the water board.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu launched the recycling unit at Nampally railway station on Saturday through a remote link. It will generate three lakh litres of usable water from waste water.

Kacheguda railway station has two such treatment plants, one with a capacity of five lakh litres and the other, 40,000 litres. The station used to draw 6.6 lakh litres from the Water Board for cleaning trains and another 4 lakh litres for drinking water for passengers, and to fill the tanks in coaches of at least 50 trains.

Each coach requires 225 litres of water for cleaning and 1,800 litres of drinking water every day. But the recycling saves about Rs 3.6 crore per annum in water charges.

Nampally railway station used to draw 16 lakh litres of water from the water board per day of which 9 lakh litres was for cleaning coaches and stations. The new treatment plant will reduce that number to three lakh litres of water, which will lead to a saving of Rs 2.4 crore per annum.

Recycled water will also be used for cleaning bogies and platforms, while drinking water will continue to come from the municipal supply. But when asked why the railways was not using recycled water sold by the Water Board, an official said the cost of transporting the water was high.