Southern Railway Uses Recycled Sewage Water for Coach Cleaning (India)
Southern Railway has begun using treated sewage water from the Langs Garden modular STP in Chennai for non-potable uses including coach washing, street cleaning and green spaces - supporting resource conservation.
Southern Railway is set to switch to recycled sewage water instead of freshwater for its daily operations such as coach cleaning and track maintenance. It has planned to source treated water from the Langs Garden modular sewage treatment plant, drawing up to 6 million litres a day. The Langs Garden facility is designed to supply water purified water through the reverse osmosis (RO) process. Metrowater has already laid a pipeline from the plant to the Egmore yard.
"As Southern Railway requires 5MLD to 6MLD of water from the plant for coach washing, track maintenance, and other non-potable purposes, we have issued a work order to lay the internal pipeline for water supply to be taken up by the railways," said T G Vinay, managing director of Chennai Metro Water Board.Similarly, the board is working on establishing filling points at the plant to supply treated water to Greater Chennai Corporation for street washing and gardening in parks and medians across the city.
However, the civic body is yet to specify its water requirement from Metrowater. Chennai Metro Rail Ltd is also in talks with the board to source treated water from the plant, though discussions are yet to be finalized.The two major Tertiary Treatment Reverse Osmosis (TTRO) plants at Koyambedu and Kodungaiyur, which have a capacity of 45MLD each, are expected to expand water supply for other departments.
Metrowater will upgrade the Kodungaiyur TTRO plant at an estimated cost of 2 crore to enable full-scale production of 45MLD.There is demand from industries in north Chennai, which the plant can adequately meet. It supplies water that can also be used as potable water. Once the upgrade is completed, there is scope to expand supply for other purposes, including to the SIPCOT complex,Vinay said.