VELLORE: The Government Higher secondary school at Thorapadi here has gained attention for the installation of the state's first Bio-Toilet which has evoked curiosity from other schools. The bio-toilet costing Rs 90,000 was inaugurated by the district collector S A Raman recently. The project is the culmination of a collaborative effort of a group of ten students of Thanthai Periyar Government Institute of Technology (TPGIT) here and the DRDO, Bengaluru.
Faculty coordinator Professor Praveen Raj of TPGIT said that the toilet has been designed by the final year students of mechanical engineering who are members of the student chapter of Engineers Without Border (EWB) India network. The chapter was inaugurated in the college recently and the students wanted to work on this project. Deviating from the conventional designs, the bio-toilet designed by them has four chambers inside the septic tank (bio-digester) each of which contain around 12 bacteria colonization holders. The bacteria inoculum as seed material was outsourced from a DRDO technology partner agency in liquid form and mixed with cow dung to mulitiply manifolds.
The bacteria can sustain under anaerobic conditions for over 60 years living on the human excreta thus relieving the burden of frequent clean ups, bad odour while the water from the tank could be recycled. The by-product methane gas can also be utilized for any purpose, he added.'We started the work sometime in October last year. When once the design was completed, a survey was done by the students to identify the school' Praveen Raj recalled. 15 schools in and around Vellore were visited by the students before they finalized the Government Higher Secondary school at Thorapadi which fitted with the design criteria of 500 plus users a day.
This school which has a student strength of around 1200, has three toilets for girls, two for boys and two for the faculties. The entire cost of the toilet has been mobilized from EWB (Rs 25,000), college alumni (Rs 30,000) and college chapter of EWB (Rs 35,000) totaling Rs 90,000.The school headmaster C Veeramani said, 'since the girl students were always in need of toilets, we wanted the new design implemented for them'. The three toilets have now been merged into one so that all the girls can use the bio-toilet with ease. The construction of the toilet was completed in just one month entirely by the TPGIT students with the help of a mason when the school had summer holidays. The headmaster said that the concept of the bio-toilets and its usage have been explained to the students during the prayer time.
The children have asked to use more water to flush while avoiding throwing plastics or other materials that would choke the bio-digestion process. 'We are planning to seek help from philanthropists to convert the remaining toilets in the schools into bio-toilets' he added. Impressed by the novelty, teachers and students from other schools have already started beelining to have a glimpse at the new toilet, he further said.Dr Dillibabu, scientists attached to DRDO, Bengaluru who was part of this project noted that the technology was developed for the army purpose but this is the first time it has been customized for civilian application at a school level in Tamilnadu. 'We would be happy to support more schools to come forward to install such facilities' he said adding, 'the district administration can also make use of this technology for the Total Sanitation project'.