Leaving tap water or hydrants running is a common sight at public places and railway stations in our country, resulting in large amount of precious water going down the drain. There is also the problem of misuse of water by people living illegally near railway stations.
The Moradabad Junction railway station, too, faced this issue until a year-and-a-half ago. Nearly 10,000 litres of water was being wasted every hour because of leakages or unauthorised use from hydrants installed at the station. Moradabad Junction is a major station where more than 160 trains pass every day. Eight hundred and forty six hydrants are in place in the seven platforms.
It was not just the loss of water but pumping hours were also being wasted to fill the water tanks in the coaches. Consequently, there was also an increase in the consumption of electricity. It was calculated that apart from the wastage of 6,660,000 litres of water, 333 pumping hours for which over 8690 KW units of electricity was also being wasted every month.
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Although several experiments were carried out by way of fitting various wooden or metal devices to prevent leakages and pilferages, these did not yield the desired results.
To overcome this problem, the Carriage and Wagon (C&W) wing of the Moradabad Division came out with an innovative model and used it as an experiment on Platform 1 of the Moradabad railway station. A railway team led by Manish Pandey, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer of the C&W wing, developed and designed a hydrant control valve with detachable handles. These valves could only be opened or closed by authorised C&W staff. Another advantage was that this device could not be stolen. After the experiment proved successful, the new device was commissioned at all the seven platforms of Moradabad Junction in December 2012.
It is estimated that with this small mechanical innovation in place, 21,142,857 gallons of water, 3,996 pumping hours and 104,335 KW of electricity will be saved at the Moradabad Junction alone every year. Apart from saving the precious water, Rs 9.81 lakh will also be saved annually. The device also leads to an increase in water pressure
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The railway authorities are now in the process of installing these innovative hydrant control valves at Haridwar, Bareilly and Dehradun railway stations as well.
Passengers passing through Moradabad Junction are now the unseemly sight of people bathing and washing using the leaking hydrant water.
India has the second largest railway network in the world with 12,000 trains passing through 7,500 stations across the country daily. If this small control valve is fitted in all water outlets at all the stations, it is not difficult to imagine how much water, electricity and the huge costs involved will be saved.