Faulty bio-toilet in Rajdhani express raises stink for railways

Sixteen months ago, on January 6, 2021, the vigilance branch of Railway Board, the apex decision-making body of Railways, suggested there could be a scam in the supply of vacuum toilets, and proposed that M/s Amit Engineering and another company be banned.

Last month, when a passenger travelling in the New Delhi-Bilaspur Rajdhani express flushed the bio-toilet after use, the faulty WC threw up the waste. The passenger, soiled with stinking human waste, was angry and shot off a written complaint that was received by the Northern Railway (NR) on April 15 this year. What he couldn’t have known was that he was flagging an issue that could potentially derail the Indian Railways’ efforts to eliminate free discharge from toilets on the tracks.

Indian Railways has installed more than 250,000 lakh bio-toilets till last year, spending ₹1500 crores. (Mint file)

Within a day of receiving the complaint, the coach (181485/NR/LWACCN) was removed from service. On April 20, Kaustubh Mani, CRSE (Coaching) of NR, wrote to all zonal railways saying: “Several similar cases of bio-vacuum toilets of M/s Amit Engineers have been reported in the past but any system improvement is yet to be done by the firm. Hence, being an exceptionally bad case, a penalty of ₹10 lakh has been imposed on the firm for damaging the image of Railways.”

The letter also noted that “a drive has been launched to check all the toilets of all the firms to positively prevent any such recurrence in future. As instructed by Railway Board, a similar drive should be launched by other zonal railways also to check the working of bio-toilet. The drive may be completed within 10 days and feedback given.”

HT has seen a copy of the complaint and the letter.

But that wasn’t M/s Amit Engineers first negative mention in a departmental communication.

Sixteen months ago, on January 6, 2021, the vigilance branch of Railway Board, the apex decision-making body of Railways, suggested there could be a scam in the supply of vacuum toilets, and proposed that M/s Amit Engineering and another company be banned. The Railway Board’s vigilance cell conducted an enquiry and found collusion between officials of the Board, Integrated Coach Factory and two firms, including Amit Engineering.

An internal note of Integrated Coach Factory (ICF) said: “Railway Board Vigilance’s investigation into a complaint regarding issuance of vendor directory by ICF has substantiated the allegations that for supply of Vaccum Evacuation System in Indian Railways, Vendor Directory was drawn flouting all rules and regulations with the active collusion of two firms, viz., M/s Amit Engineers and M/s Oasis Fabrications with the official of Railway Board and ICF.... Railway Board Vigilance has proposed for banning/blacklisting dealings with these two firms for a period of five years and submitted a draft memorandum to be issued to both the firms.”

HT has reviewed a copy of the note.

Indian Railways did not respond to emails, WhatsApp messages and calls seeking comment. An official from Amit Engineering called to say that the documents available with HT don’t reflect the full story but refused to give the company’s version. Oasis Fabrications could not be reached for comment.

Indian Railways has installed more than 250,000 lakh bio-toilets till last year, spending ₹1500 crores. It is not immediately known how many bio toilets were supplied by M/s Amit Engineers. Indian Railways started installing bio toilets on a large scale from 2019, in sync with PM Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat mission.

As for the faulty bio-toilet incident, on May 5, this year, Railways Design and Standards Organisation, Indian Railways’ only R&D body that also functions as the technical advisor to zonal railways, called a meeting. Its Executive Director (Carriage 1), a Joint Director and SSE (design) were present in the meeting along with representatives of five vendors including M/s Amit Engineers.

According to the minutes of the meeting, which have been seen by HT, it was conveyed to the “representatives of the firm that such incidents are not tolerable by Indian Railways in future. Such incidents are punishable under law and may invite legal proceedings”.

It also pushed for reviews of various components, quality checks and maintenance and asked Amit Engineers to “provide the detailed investigation report of the incident happened on 15.04.2022 in train no. 12441”.