CHENNAI: With summer holidays in full swing and all trains operating at 100 percent occupancy, water scarcity has been felt badly by passengers travelling by intercity and long distance express trains from Chennai Central and Coimbatore.
Recently, a few intercity and long distance trains ran out of water within two to three hours of departure from the originating stations leaving passengers in the lurch.
Passengers on Chennai Central - Salem section also had to endure the stench emanating from the toilets after the train’s tanks ran dry. The railway has been struggling to supply its trains, departing from Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore and a few other stations, with water amid groundwater depletion and dwindling supply from private tankers.
According to sources, the railways typically supplies water to meet 50% of the need on off-peak days (Monday to Thursday) due to limited occupancy on trains and increases the supply to 75 % on weekends (Friday to Sunday) for regular services.
However, due to shortage, the railways last week halved the supply during weekdays even when summer holidays were in full swing and all trains were operating at 100% occupancy. Consequently, trains departing from Chennai Central had only water to meet 25% of their usual demand.
‘Rly officials told to closely monitor water scarcity issue’
The minimum water requirement for a regular train is 40,000 litres a trip. Southern Railway, however, maintained that prompt action was taken to supply water at the next nominated stations for trains in the Chennai - Salem section a few days ago.
“Officials from the Commercial and Mechanical departments have been briefed to closely monitor this issue specifically,” said a senior official from Southern railway headquarters. He also said departmental action is being taken against those staff who failed to supply water for trains.
While a few long-distance trains have been able to provide water at the next designated refilling station, supplying water to trains, maintaining coaches, including daily water washing, and providing drinking water to stations have turned into an uphill task for the railways. Passengers on special trains are the worst affected as these trains are given lower priority.
The railways had designated Katpadi, Jolarpettai, Salem, and Erode stations for refilling the train tanks in the Chennai - Coimbatore section. Similarly, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Tiruchy, Madurai, and Tirunelveli have been nominated for refilling the tanks in the Chennai - Nagercoil section.
K Swaminathan of Thiruvanmiyur, a regular traveller, said, “Almost half of the passengers travelling in reserved coaches of the Kovai Express were compelled to relocate to another coach due to the foul odour from the toilets while returning from Coimbatore. Despite lodging multiple complaints through the helpline and Rail Madad application, all efforts proved futile.”
As groundwater levels continue to diminish over the years in Basin Bridge, Mannady, Periamet, and surrounding areas, the railway is wholly reliant on water provided by Chennai Metro Water and private tankers to manage its operations at two coaching depots (Basin Bridge and Gopalasamy Nagar) and MGR Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore stations.
The water provided by Chennai Metro Water is received at Tiruvottiyur storage tanks and transported to the coaching yards and terminals through pipelines. Additionally, about 3.5 lakh litres of water generated by the recycling plant at Basin Bridge are reused for cleaning the coaches. However, supplying water to trains remains challenging due to scarcity. As a result, exterior cleaning of coaches is also being skipped for several rakes in order to save the water.
The Basin Bridge coaching yard is responsible for primary maintenance of over 45 trains, which include primary maintenance of 33 trains.
It requires 12 lakh litres of water per day, while MGR Chennai Central station, serving about 65,000 passengers daily, requires 10 lakh litres. Similarly, Egmore station’s per day demand is 10 lakh litres of water per day, and the supply is outsourced to private tanker lorry companies. The GSN yard maintains about 27 trains a day.
“Washing the coach exterior is mandatory during primary maintenance. Necessary measures have been taken to wade through the water crisis during the summer season. The question of operating water special trains does not arise,” a railway official said.