Introduction of SCTC for all 1,600 rakes of the Railways would cost around Rs. 1,000 crore at the rate of Rs. 63 lakh per rake.

A senior Railway official has come out with a novel idea that could rid the Indian Railways of the ‘World’s largest open toilet’ tag.

His idea of self-contained toilet coaches (SCTC) within every train rake will not only make tracks stench-free, but also reduce financial burden on the Railways, which is introducing expensive bio-toilets in all coaches.

In his paper hosted on the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) Association (www.irts.org.in), senior IRTS officer and Director with the Railway Board, Anwar Hussain Shaik, has given a simple solution — remove toilets in every passenger coach and design exclusive toilet coaches that can be attached to every rake.

The SCTC will have a collection tank beneath and a water tank atop. The waste will be disposed of directly to the underground drainage system at designated stations, thereby completely eliminating manual intervention. Depending upon the number of coaches of each rake, three or four toilet coaches could be marshalled in between the rake in such a way that passengers need not cross more than three coaches to reach the toilet, Mr. Shaik said.

Introduction of SCTC for all 1,600 rakes of the Railways would cost around Rs. 1,000 crore at the rate of Rs. 63 lakh per rake. However, the bio-toilets would cost more than Rs. 8,000 crore. While bio-toilets involve maintenance expenditure, it is negligible for SCTC rakes, Mr. Shaik said. He, however, admitted that the big problem would be changing the mindset of passengers, who are used to toilets in every coach. The present system of open toilets in each coach is a public nuisance. More importantly, they violate the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.