Chief minister Ashok Chavan has asked the railways to look for other sources of water to meet their daily requirements.
The Central and Western Railway require about 38.52 lakh litres of water of which the former consumes nearly 23.40 lakh litres to wash local train coaches.
“We want to give more priority to drinking water,” Chavan said. “Hence the amount of water supplied to the railways for washing will be reduced.”
Chavan was present at the flagging off of the Dadar-Varanasi Superfast Express and Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Duronto Express at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on Thursday.
SC Mudgerikar, chief PRO of CR, said that they use 1,800 litre of water to wash a single coach. “While the local trains are washed once in a fortnight, the express train coaches are washed after every trip,” he said. “We also provide nearly 1,500 litres of water on every express train,” he added.
Claiming that they recycle about 1.5 lakh litres of water daily, Mudgerikar said that if the BMC supply is reduced, they will no option but to to increase their dependence on tanker water.
Also present at the occasion, mayor Shraddha Jadhav, cautioned the government on the influx of north Indians as the Varanasi train would be plying daily between Dadar and
Varanasi.
