Sensors to prevent Railway bio-toilet from clogging

Bio-toilet in train clogged? Don't bother about complaining to railway staff to clean it. The Indian Railways has developed a system which will automatically alert the nearest depot or on-board cleaning staff.

The sensor will be installed in all toilets in the coaches. Whenever the toilets get clogged, the sensor will send an alert message to the on-board cleaning staff as well as nearest the railway depot. This will help them clean it at the earliest, said an official in the Railways.

Started as a pilot project, the new system will be installed in only a few coaches and depending upon success, it will be installed in train coaches, said the official.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)m in a report in December 2017 had found that almost two lakh complaints regarding clogged, smelly and non-functional bio-toilets in trains were received from public in 2016-17.

The Indian Railways is the first organisation in the world to install bio-toilet on such a massive scale and so far over 62,000 coaches have already been fitted with bio-toilets.

The national transporter, has, however, found it a tough task to keep coaches clean with the toilets choked with litter, plastic bottles, sanitary napkins, and other inorganic waste.

The railways have also installed extra dustbins inside toilets and coaches and also sought support from users to solve this problem.

“We have put dustbins in all toilets — where people can throw paper or sanitary napkins. Four dustbins in toilets of each coach. The janitors — part of onboard housekeeping outsourced staff — will be periodically cleaning the dustbins,” said Rajesh Agrawal, Member (Rolling Stock) Railway Board, said.