Financial Crunch in Railways

Fund shortage stalls railways' water recycling plant plan

TNN | Apr 12, 2012, 05.27AM IST

PUNE: The Pune railway administration's plan to set up a water recycling plant at the coach maintenance complex in Ghorpadi is stuck due to shortage of funds.

The plant, which was approved last year, will cost Rs 36 lakh and will have the capacity to treat about 5,000 litre of water per hour.

Sources said that the plant could be started in a span of one year after allocation of funds for the project. When the plant is ready, the railways will be able to recycle a large quantity of used water and will not have to depend only on the water supply by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), officials added.

On an average, 12 trains are cleaned and maintained every day at the pit lines at Pune station and Ghorpadi yard. To replace the conventional manual washing of coaches, the administration recently installed an automatic coach washing plant at Ghorpadi where about 26,000 litre of water was being saved every day. Moreover, 50% of the water being used was also being recycled there. But the administration now wants to install a separate plant only for recycling of water, so that 100% of the water used for washing trains can be treated and re-used for cleaning purposes.

A railway official said, "Of the 12 trains maintained at Pune, about two to three are still being cleaned manually, while others are cleaned at the automatic coach washing plant. In the manual method, about 12,000 litre of water is used to clean a 10-coach rake as compared to 10,000 litre of water used for cleaning a 24-coach train at the automatic plant. There is a plan to treat the used water at the recycling plant and to re-use it. Meanwhile, 50% of the water is already treated at the automatic coach washing plant. The remaining quantity will be taken through channels to the proposed recycling plant and treated there."

According to an official, the work for the water recycling plant, which will have the capacity to treat about 5,000 litre of water per hour, has already been sanctioned. The cost of the project is around Rs 36 lakh, which is yet to be received. The work is expected to begin with the second phase of pit-lines laying works of the Ghorpadi yard coach complex.

Meanwhile, due to the on-going water restrictions, the railway administration is receiving about 30.58 lakh litre of water every day as against the quota of 52.64 lakh litre. Various measures are being taken to meet the water demand at railway stations in the Pune division. All departments have been instructed to use water cautiously, said an official.