All railway coaches to be equipped with bio-toilets by 2018

New Delhi: The Ministry of Railways has advanced the target for 100 percent completion of installing Bio-toilets in coaches to December 2018.

The decision was announced at an event titled, “Indian Transport Sector: Marching towards sustainable mobility” at Conference of Parties (COP-23), Indian Pavilion at Bonn, Germany.

Ravindra Gupta, Member (Rolling Stock), Ministry of Railways mentioned that the ministry is working on various innovative steps towards attaining a low carbon pathway and to provide sustainable mobility.

Gupta emphasized particularly on the innovative steps taken by Indian Railways by way of bio-toilets for having an open discharge free environment in line with the mission of “Swachh Bharat” and Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In line with the mission of Swachh Bharat and Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaigns, bio-toilets were introduced to curb the unhygienic practice, and at present, more than 900 trains have been augmented with bio-toilets in either all or some coaches of the trains.

The event was attended by nearly 50 national and international participants including eminent speakers, policy makers, and industry representatives.

The event started with an Audio-Visual film on Indian Railways showcasing key low carbon transport initiatives being taken by Indian Railways such as Electrification, Energy Efficiency initiatives and renewable energy deployment.

The session was organised in partnership with the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), as knowledge partners, FICCI as the industry partner, and RITES as the technical partner.