As the whole state is struggling with the drought and to spread the message of awareness on water conservation, Mumbai Metro, too contributed in the initiative and sets an amazing example. They are going for the three-pronged approach towards water conservation starting by cutting down the usage of water to wash trains from 200 liters to 20 liters, an applauding 90% cut. Most of the water, used form rain water harvesting, about 80% water which use to wash exteriors is then get recycled and reused for gardening and other purposes.

Mumbai Metro has 16 rakes in total and each of them is washed from inside every day. An official at Mumbai Metro One Pvt. Ltd. (MMOPL) said this would consume 200 liters of water earlier but now keeping in mind the water crisis situation we have cut it down to 20 liters. Special coating has been added on the floors to clean the trains easily.

“Due to heavy footfalls in the trains, the floor of the compartments obviously collects a lot of dust and dirt. A durable epoxy coating was used on the train floors to repel dust and dirt, thereby drastically reducing the quantity of water required,” said the MMOPL official.

Although there was not any water crisis when the Mumbai Metro was launched on June 2014, the authority added the systems to use less water for the metro purposes. Hence, in the water crisis situation like today, the MMOPL is fully ready to survive it. The decision taken while forming the whole system is paying of now. “From the start of the project itself, MMRDA-MMOPL has been taking measures to save as much water as possible. Every year Mumbaikars have to face water cuts, so we also came up with a solution to use less water,” said an official of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

The 14 bungalows which are used to wash the rakes of the metro in Andheri (W) consumes 1,200 liters of water. The quantity of water required to wash the exteriors is less as most of the exterior of the metro is made up of steel which does not collect dust easily. Apart from that the 80% of water is used to through the harvesting of rainwater only and this water then gets recycled to use for gardening and beautification of the area.

One of the official at MMOPL added, “Mumbai Metro’s automatic wash utilizes about 1,200 liters to wash each train. About 1,000 litres from this is collected and reused. Less than 17% of the water is dispersed due to the gust from the high pressure jets used for cleaning. We used an innovative design idea to make the water recycling efficient. The wash plant was installed on an elevated ramp and the water recycling plant is located underneath it to directly collect the used water.”

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By Prajakt K.