Bio-toilets in trains poorly maintained, sparse, says report
NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways’ ambitious project to install biotoilets in all passenger trains doesn’t seem to be on the right track, reveals a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).
The report, tabled in parliament on Tuesday, highlighted lacunae in achieving the target set for the induction of these toilets in passenger coaches, supplying the bio tanks and other materials and ensuring their proper upkeep.
According to the report, in November 2011, the Railways decided to install 10,000 toilets in passenger coaches without analysing the trials it conducted in seven trains during January 2011 to April 2012.
“Against a target of turning out 100% passenger coaches with bio-toilets, three production units in Indian Railways tuned out 5.7% coaches without any bio toilets in 2016-17,” says the report.
The CAG found that 6.7% of the total manufactured modern coaches lacked bio toilets in 2016-17. As far as the implementation of Railway Board’s decision, CAG’s findings say that during 2014-15 to 2016-17, utilisation of funds remained between 34% and 71%.
“In 2016-17, against a target of 16,800 bio-toilets, various zonal railways could induct 12,828 biotoilets,” the report says.
It also finds that Indian Railways placed orders for bulk supply, installation and commissioning of bio toilets with companies facing complaints of poor quality.
“As on March 31, 2017, 304 bio toilets supplied by various firms were found defective and thus rejected/couldn’t be installed,” says the CAG.
Poor maintenance of installed bio-toilets remains another major concern. The CAG found that out of 613 trains in 15 Zonal Railways’ 30 coaching depots in 2016-17, 160 didn’t have any bio toilets fitted and in the remaining 453 trains,199,689 instances of deficiencies/ complaints were noticed.
Even the Railways’ initiatives of developing green train stations and green corridors with tracks free of human waste discharge, failed as the nominated stations and corridors didn’t follow the conditions.
The audit report recommended standardisation of design, adequate supply of good quality and quantity of bio toilets, monitoring of performance and proper maintenance contracts among other things.