Were bio-toilets introduced only after 2014?

Bio-toilets were introduced in 2010 during the UPA-II regime but BJP supporters claim it was introduced after 2014.

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Claim

Toilets in Indian Railways started in the beginning of the 20th century, but the British made a 5″ hole in the floor of the compartment, the problem was that the tracks, stations, rivers, fields all used to be dirty And the biggest problem was faced by the gangmen who used to fit the tracks, even after 70 years of independence, till 2014, no government paid attention to this, today, 100 years after the installation of toilets in the railways for the first time in Indian Railways after 2014  After a gap of 5 years, almost 80% of railway coaches are equipped with bio-toilets and stations, tracks, rivers and fields are saved from getting dirty. Now it is not necessary to tell that whose government after 2014 has been successful in stopping the filth spreading in the country by doing all this hard work.

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Explanation

Several social media users claim that the bio-toilets were introduced in the Indian Railways after 2010. Before the bio-toilets were introduced, the coaches in the trains did not have any system of collecting the waste discharge from the toilets and they would drop straight into the tracks. If the train is in a railway station, the tracks in the station would be soiled with human waste and the stench would fill the platforms and the entire railway station.

Old Photo of a train track in a railway station.

Moreover, these needed to be cleaned by humans by hand and this manual scavenging was decided to be abolished in Railways through installation of bio-toilets. Now, several social media users claim that the scheme was introduced after 2014 after Narendra Modi led BJP came to power. Some of those posts can be seen here, here and here.

What’s the truth?

When we did a keyword search, we found that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Ministry of Railways and the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO).

According to a document from the Comptroller Audit General of India (CAG) website, in November 2009, Railway Board set up a Core Group to decide suitable environment friendly toilets and in January 2010 the group made the recommendation to use bio-toilets, following which an MoU was signed in March 2010.

A simple keyword search in twitter also gave several tweets about the updates from Press Information Bureau & other organizations regarding the installation of Bio-toilets.

It is interesting to note that when the bio-toilets were introduced, the target was fixed at all coaches of the Indian Railways should be fitted with bio-toilets by 2020-21. But the virally shared social media posts shared in 2023 claim that only 80% of the coaches are fitted with bio-toilets.

Conclusion

The bio-toilets scheme was started by Indian Railways in 2010 under the UPA-II regime with a target of fixing all railway coaches with bio-toilets by 2020-21.

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Ramasamy Jayaprakash

Ramasamy works as a Senior Sub-Editor at YouTurn and writes articles in Tamil and English. He also makes videos for YouTurn's Tamil & English YouTube channels.
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