Indian Railways Launches Bio-toilet Scheme; Claim Bacteria Will Solve Sanitation Problem

In the past year, several newspapers[1][2][3][4] have been reporting on the 'Bio-toilet initiative' of the Indian Railways, developed with DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organisation), touting it as a solution to India's sanitation problem. The Indian Railways have shown extreme interest in this project since toilets in Indian trains are open to tracks - which means dirty and corroded tracks. The new bio-toilets are supposed to be using bacteria to clean the toilets - exactly how - is turning out to be mystery.

Scientists from IIT-Kanpur have already rubbished claims about the toilets as extreme - TOI quotes Professor Tare of IITK as saying:

Tare said the whole project was based on misinformation. "With every flush untreated waste is expelled through different levels and finally on the tracks" 

While dubious claims by government organisations are not new - this one is worrying. The Rural Development Ministry has started acquiring these toilets for use in rural areas, and while TOI did quote professor Tare as saying this might be usable for homes - one might still be skeptical of all these plans. Specially since there is so much investment. The Hindu has said [5] that the Ministry of Rural Development plans to invest 400 cr. in the project - this is apart from the hundreds of crores the railways might already end up spending on this.

And even though this is not related to genetic engineering - maintaining an interest in this is of vital importance - specially since everything 'bio' in India is likely to get tagged together - Biotechnology, Biology, GM - everything sadly means the same. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out - if this really is a successful project, or another scam in the making.