Mumbai locals saving 72,000 litres of water everyday

In wake of Maharashtra’s drought, Western and Central have taken a step which is expected to save over 72,000 litres of water everyday.

Until now, both Western and Central railways used to wash their rakes using mechanized systems. While the system was efficient at cleaning the rakes, it used very high quantity of water for cleaning.

According to railway estimates, the cleaning of each Central Railway rake would result in a consumption of around 10,000 litres of water. In case of Western Railway, the number stood at 7,000 litres of water. With eight rakes being washed across each line everyday, Mumbai’s local trains would consume around 1.36 lakh litres of water each day.

In a bid to reduce the consumption of water, both Western and Central lines have shifted to a manual cleaning system. Under the new system, railway staff would manually wash each rake in the car shed with water hoses. Although the manual system is more labour intensive, it results in a saving of 5,000 litres of water per rake on Central line and 4,000 litres of water per rake on the Western line.

With the total consumption down to 64,000 litres, railways are now saving over 72,000 litres of water each day.

In addition to washing manually, the rakes are being washed after a gap of 15 days instead of the earlier 10 day gap. But to ensure that the rakes still adhere to hygiene standards, railway staff will be cleaning the interior with mops everyday.