Bio-toilets in rail coaches by 2019

The Ministry of Railways will complete its project of providing discharge-free toilets in all its coaches by 2019.  The Railways has already provided 43,000  bio-toilets and will provide another 27,000 by the end of this year.

“With provision of bio-toilets in all its coaches, discharge of human waste from trains to the ground will be completely stopped, which in turn will help improve cleanliness and hygiene,” said a railway official.

To provide hygienic environment to passengers and to keep station premises/tracks clean, the Railways has developed environment-friendly bio-toilets for its passenger coaches. The technology has been developed jointly by the Indian Railways and the



Defence Research & Development Organisation. This environment-friendly and low-cost technology is the first of its kind in  the world. In the bio-toilet-fitted coaches, human waste is collected in tanks below the toilets and the same is decomposed by a consortium of bacteria.

The Railways has selected important tourist routes for making the green corridor- free of human waste discharge from trains. Rameswaram-Manamadurai (114 km) was identified for the green-train corridor project. 

Accordingly, 10 passenger trains consisting of 286 coaches moving over this section have been provided with bio-toilets. This section was formally inaugurated as a green train corridor.