A post showing the before and after condition of a railway track is doing the rounds on social media. People have shared the post claiming that the BJP government installed bio-toilets in the trains after coming to power in 2014. Many people have also criticised the UPA government for ignoring such a necessity in the Indian Railways and spreading filth in the country till 2014.
A Facebook user posted the viral post with a caption:
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. 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 five 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… but… government after 2014 has been successful in stopping the filth spreading in the country by doing all this hard work.
You can check the post here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral post, and found it to be false.
Running a Google Keyword Search to know about the installation of the bio-toilets in the Indian Railways, we traced a presentation, titled: Bio-Toilets for Indian Railways, on the official website of the Indian Railway Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering (IRIMEE).
One of the slides in the presentation informs about a MoU, dated March 9, 2010, between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Railways. The UPA government signed this MoU to develop a bio-toilet system suitable for railway coaches.
In another presentation, IRIMEE informs that the first rake with bio-toilets developed with DRDO was installed in Bundelkhand Express on January 18, 2011.
We also came across the highlights for the Railways Budget of 2012-13 on the official website Indian Railways. Under the section: Green Initiatives we found out that the Railway Ministry announced to equip 2,500 coaches with bio-toilets in that year.
Regarding bio-toilets in the Indian Railways, there is also Lok Sabha answer, dated August 14, 2014. The answer stated that bio-toilets, based on the indigenously developed design and technology, were proliferated by Indian Railways since 2012 and 11,777 bio-toilets were installed in 4,356 passenger coaches till 30th June 2014. It further shows a list of trains where the bio-toilets were partially installed.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral picture, claiming that bio-toilets were installed in Indian railways by the BJP government, is false.
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