The Railway Board has a new idea to incorporate vacuum and Bio toilets. This new type of toilet will be known as the ‘hybrid vacuum toilet.’ Stinking washrooms have always been an issue in every train. More and more passengers are becoming hygiene conscious these days. On Monday, a trail run of the vacuum toilets was launched on Dibrugarh Rajdhani. There will be an observation made for few days regarding this new service.

The hybrid vacuum toilet has been fitted in the First AC coach. This service has cost around 3 lakh and it is also equipped with bio-digester system. Many who have travelled by aircrafts are aware about vacuum toilets.

According to the plan decided, the railway sector will be installing 80 hybrid vacuum toilets on Shatabdi Express. The rail sector has floated worldwide tenders for the installation of the toilets at a cost of around Rs. 25 crore. Multinational companies from across the world like USA, Spain, Germany and Denmark have also shown keen interest in the installing project, stated an official who is a part of the project.

The best part about the entire project is that the toilets are environment-friendly and the consumption of water will be lesser than before. Also, the cleanliness factor matters a lot. The same vacuum toilet will be installed at New Delhi Railway station also. For now, trains like Shatabdi and Rajdhani have been equipped with the bio toilets featuring controlled discharge system. An official, who is part of this project, stated that the waste automatically gets discharged after the trains gain the speed of 30 km per hour thus preventing the disposal at the stations.

Till now 17,388 toilets have been replaced with the new bio-toilets. More 17,000 will be replaced by the end of the year.

This is a good way to save water since a conventional toilet takes up 10 to 12 litres of water per flush whereas a vacuum toilet only takes up around 500 ml of water per flush. Most of the foreign countries use the vacuum toilet system in their trains. And since the Indian Railways are all set to modernize and change the railway systems in India, this change was important and will be helpful.

Indian railways are soon going to become different, modern and better! Japan is going to contribute towards modernizing 400 railway stations all across the country. Not just this, but Japan will also invest $140 billion for Indian Railways in the next five years.

The project is all set to begin and the first step is going to be of studying opportunities. A Japanese delegation is going to visit India anytime soon and research and see what opportunities are there for the industries in the development plans for Indian Railways. 400 stations will be upgraded across India.

Suresh Prabhu, India’s Railway Minister was recently in Japan and he discussed to make cooperation in order to strengthen the rail sector. He had several high level conferences with Mr. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese PM, Taro Aso Deputy PM and Finance Minister with few other seniors and ministers. Suresh Prabhu highlighted that Indian Railways needs to be a major destination towards infrastructure investment.

The discussion also included the fact that certain areas of the railways need to be modernized and there has to be technological upgrade with the help of Japanese railways and companies. Japan has agreed to modernise and upgrade. Other than that, they have also agreed in assisting India’s public transport in reaching the zero-accident mission.

A MoU will be signed by the Research Designs & Standards Organisation with the Railway Technical Research Institute of Japan to start out the project and researches to finalise the plan.

Mr. Prabhu had also held few other meetings with the heads of some of the leading financial institutions in which he highlighted the investment plan for the Indian Railways. Apart from modernizing and developing railway stations, Japan will also help the Indian rail sector in providing expert tips and technology to maintain sanitation issues and also to develop clean, odourless toilets at the stations and in the trains.

Not just this but the country is also planning out developments in Indian Railways for high speed railway in India.

We hope that Suresh Prabhu, who is on a two-nation trip to Japan and Korea since the 7^th of September gears in Korea to provide investments and resources for the development of Indian Railways.

For all those who want to visit their loved ones for Deepavali this year can take benefits of the special support the Indian Railways started in the month of July. The advance reservations opened from July 9^th, 8 am onwards. This 120 days scheme has been good for those who wanted to acquire their seats on certain crowded trains.

Though Diwali is going to be celebrated on the November 10^th this year, there are some people who are planning to go out of their houses to celebrate the festival from November 6^th. This was a major reason why this year the reservations started in the month of July.

According to sources, most people have booked their tickets for the weekend that is Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This early advantage has shown an increase in the bookings. This new booking scheme came in force on April 1^st 2015. We must say that this has been quite a successful idea.

People have also made multiple bookings on different dates that are not sure about their travel dates. Other than this, all the refunds of the tickets will be done through the banking systems.

For all those who missed out this special service in the month of July can still head to the IRCTC website or to their respective stations to make train reservations for Diwali festival. The special trains are yet to be announced.

The Railways had introduced special trains for Kawad Yatra, which was a successful plan since most of the devotees benefitted through the service. Not just Deepavali, but there are special trains for Durja Puja and Ganesh Chaturthi, which are going to be a major help for all the travellers, who go from one place to another to celebrate these festivals.

Apart from all this, the Railway Minister came out with another special benefit for the travellers. The differently abled passengers will have an exclusive support by which they can buy concessional e-tickets after one time registration. The growth in the rail sector is commendable, and soon, we will have a modernised pattern with high end stations for our services.

Suresh Prabhu, the Railway Minister, announced to a gathering, in a function held at Pernem Railway Station, where had gone to flag off the train between Pernem and Karwar,  that his ministry will form SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) with 17 states in the country to develop the railway infrastructure.

The Minister said that they are making special purpose vehicles with each state separately and there are 17 states that have shown interest in this idea. He also added that it would be a joint project. He stated that Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states are not a part of this scheme.

In a candid interview, Suresh Prabhu spilled some more details regarding this plan. “We will create special purpose vehicles for 17 states. These states as well as the centre will invest the capital. All this will be used for the development of railway infrastructure.” The Minister recently went out to meet some biggies of corporate and banking companies in Maharashtra and expects an investment of Rs 10,000 crore for upcoming 5 years from them for this company.

He also said that all the states are gradually accepting the idea and are interested in signing. “Together we can develop additional structure and also extra bandwidth,” the Minister said. Other than this, he also declared 250 additional trains especially for the forthcoming Ganesh Chaturthi festival, which is celebrated across Maharashtra’s Konkan region and Goa in September.

“The festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is the most celebrated and important festival in Goa, and we have decided to run around 250 additional trains to clear off the rush.” A lot of railways divisions like the Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd, Southern railway, Central railway and many others will be pitching in to commence these special trains.

Not just this but the Railway Minister has more in store for the rail sector. He also announced that 17 stations on KRCL route will be having Wi-Fi services and escalators, including Margao, Ratnagiri, Kankavali and Thivim stations. Besides these, he has also proposed the plan of putting water vending machines at the stations to help the passengers. The bottled water rate is moderate and affordable to all.

The Minister also had meetings in Mumbai few days ago where he let out his idea to modernise Indian Railways and asked reputed public and private sector companies to fund some amounts in order to help in the betterment of the rail sector.

With all this ongoing, we are sure that the Indian Railways are going to become better and better for passengers.