Title - All railway coaches to have bio-toilets by 2017: Jairam Ramesh

The Ministry of Rural Development has offered to fit all new railway coaches with bio-toilets built by the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) and to share half the cost of retrofitting all existing 50,000 coaches with green toilets.

An official press release said Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh met  Railway Board Chairman Vinay Mittal here and expressed the hope that the project could be completed in the next four to five years.

He said the whole project would cost about Rs 500 core and offered to share the burden on a 50:50 basis with the Railways.

Mr Ramesh said that, at present, only nine trains with 436 coaches were fitted with bio-toilets, while 4000 coaches were produced annually, which could be fitted with new bio-toilets.