[ Technical Toilets for Green Thinkers]

Kanpur: An eco-friendly discharge system for trains developed by a group of IIT Kanpur scientists is being tested by the Railways even as Lalu Prasad proposed such green toilets in all trains in the 2008-09 Railway Budget yesterday. IIT Kanpur was entrusted in 2005 by Technology Mission on Railway Safety to develop eco-friendly toilets to avoid pollution and stop rails getting rusted. N S Vyas, co-ordinator, Technology Mission on Railway Safety and professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of IIT, told PTI that IIT has handed over the system worth Rs2 crore to the Railways and it was being tried in one Chennai train. The Rail Budget has allotted Rs4 crore for the project. Vyas said, “In this new system, the solid part and the liquid part of the human waste will be separated and the solid part will be collected in a container, which later will be collected on reaching the last station. The liquid part will be recycled and will be used.” “The system will avoid depositing the human waste on the rails. In China, they use thermal treatment in the trains for the disposal of human waste, but this system is completely based on chemical treatment,” he added. Vyas also said “The pilot testing is on progress in a Chennai train and as the minister has announced the proposal for green toilets in the budget, all the trains will have this soon.”

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