BENGALURU: The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has written to the Karnataka government asking it to earmark land near Mysuru to set up the state’s first Rail Neer plant. The Corporation currently transports 36,000 litres of water per day from Palur plant in Chennai for selling in bottles at stations across the South Western Railway.The proposal is said to be a brainchild of Minister of State for Railways Suresh Angadi.
A senior IRCTC official said the corporation is looking at setting up a water plant anywhere near the Cauvery river in Mysuru. “We have sent our proposal to the state government asking for land. A plant would generate local employment apart from helping the IRCTC save money spent on transporting water by trucks in 3,000 cases from Palur”, he said.
Though a litre of bottled water is sold to the public at Rs 15, IRCTC sells it to its vendors just for Rs 9.50, the official said. “We get a profit of just 50 paise from each bottle. The transportation cost is huge and setting up a plant in Karnataka would help us reduce it enormously. Instead of transporting water daily from a distance of 400 km, we can bring it to Bengaluru only from around 120 km if a plant can be located midway between the two cities,” he explained.
A rough estimate of the infrastructure cost of a ‘Rail Neer’ plant is Rs 20-30 crore, the official said. Three-fourths of the water transported daily is consumed by commuters in the Bengaluru Railway Division alone, he added. “There is less demand for the packaged water in Hubballi and Mysuru Railway Divisions,” he said.
Out of the 10 Rail Neer plants in the country, Thiruvananthapuram is the only other place in south India apart from Palur with a water plant. Two new water plants are being planned in South India — one in Vijayawada and the other in Vishakapatnam, he added.