Title - Central Railway shows the way on waste water recycling

NAGPUR: At a time when Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has drawn a plan to recycle waste water to reclaim historic Nag River, the Nagpur division of Central Railway is perhaps the first institution to do so and is already recycling 5 lakhlitres per day.

The Central Railway is making good use of waste water flowing from Chamar Nala near its premises. The plant was set up in 2003, but it is being used to its full potential after revival a couple of years ago.

"We use the recycled water for aprons and washing platforms and passenger train coaches. The water used for these purposes is retained back in the nullah and recycled again through various processes," said Brijesh Dixit, divisional railway manager (DRM), Nagpur Central Railway.

In the backdrop of the 'Save Nag River' campaign by the Times of India and Maharashtra Times, Dixit, additional divisional railway manager (ADRM) Uday Borwankar and senior divisional engineer (coordination) Sanjay Khare took out time to explain the success story.

The Central Railway is being charged commercial rate of Rs5 per litre by the civic body. "At this rate, we are saving at least Rs25,000 per day by recycling 5 lakh litre waste water daily. For us, water conserved is water produced," Dixit said.

"Had we not recycled 5 lakh litres of waste water, we would have utilized drinking water, which meant eating into the drinking water share of city residents. The recycling project also means saving the nullah from pollution," Dixit added.

One would think of how nullah water is being used to wash trains and coaches and platforms used by passengers? However, Borwankar explains, "Our sewage treatment technology has brought down the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) to a tolerable level of 30 BOD." To justify the claim, the railway officials also showed two separate glasses of water having raw and treated water.

After utilizing around 4 lakh litre recycled water at the station to clean seven platforms and tracks and wash at least 10 trains, the railways still has surplus one lakh litres water.

With a slew of environment-friendly initiatives, rainwater harvesting and recycling waste water flowing from bathroom and kitchens at Ajni quarters is also being done.

"At least 30 lakh litres of rainwater is being harvested at Ajni loco shed from around 3,000 sq metre of roof area. Besides, 25,000 litres of waste water from kitchens and bathrooms from around 200 quarters is treated at Ajni colony and utilized for gardening and watering sports ground," Dixit said.