SCR gears up to meet water requirements at Hyd, Sec'bad stations

Hyderabad : South Central Railway is all geared up to handle the water requirements of Secunderabad Railway Station, the biggest rail hub in twin cities and Hyderabad Railway Station, with the onset of summer.

Several measures, undertaken in advance have yielded good results to cater to the demands of these railway stations, informed the SCR in a press release.

Secunderabad Railway Station, which registers around 1.60 lakh footfalls daily, holds requirement for about 35.00 lakh litres every day. Around 12.00 lakh litres go to meet the drinking water requirements of passengers on the ten platforms at the station. Being a junction handling 680 Coaches of passing through trains besides 365 coaches of trains originating from here daily, the coach watering requirement is around 20.00 lakh litres daily. In addition, 3.00 lakh litres are required for washing the coaches, the platforms and cleaning the tracks. On an average, 1800 litres of water is required per coach for originating trains and 1350 litres per coach for trains passing through.

With water being a scarce commodity, SCR has been sourcing around 30.00 lakh litres of water from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to primarily meet the drinking water requirements at Secunderabad Railway Station, besides fulfilling other important needs. With a view to generate the balance need for another 5.00 lakh litres of water daily, a water recycling plant has been commissioned at the station which treats and recycles 3.00 lakh litres of water per day. Coming up with an innovation, SCR has revived the Alugadda bavi (old well) in the vicinity of the station last year which is now yielding around 2.00 lakh litres of water every day thereby enabling meet the total requirement for the station. In addition, to ensure ground water recharge, rain water harvesting pits have been provided at 08 places around Secunderabad Railway Station.

The Water recycling plant at Secunderabad Railway Station has got a capacity to recycle 3.00 lakh litres of water every day. The water used for cleaning the platforms, aprons (platform tracks surface) and waste water which flows while filling the coaches (about 3.5 lakh litres) is diverted to the water recycling plant. Around 10% to 15% of this used water goes waste during the recycling process. In the first phase, cleaning of water takes place in 3 stages. First, waste is cleared from the water, the oil and grease contents are then removed and then the bad odour / smell is removed. Later, chlorination of water is undertaken followed by letting the water through the sand filters and then the carbon filters, which finishes the total process of water recycling. This recycled water is used primarily for coach cleaning, apron (platform track) cleaning and gardening etc.,

Hyderabad Railway Station, which registers 90, 000 footfalls daily, requires about 10.05 lakh litres every day. Around 4.00 lakh litres go to meet the drinking water requirements of passengers on the platforms at the station. Around 380 coaches for various trains are watered here, towards which 4.50 lakh litres of water is required. In addition 2.50 litres of water is used for washing the coaches, the platforms and cleaning of the tracks daily. This entire need is being met by sourcing 1.50 lakh litres of water from GHMC, while the bore wells cater to 9.00 lakh litres of water requirement. A water recycling plant is being built at Hyderabad Station too, which will sizeably reduce the intake from other sources. Eco conservation measures include the six rain water harvesting pits constructed here.