Waterless urinals the new buzzword in Delhi

New Delhi: After the MCD installed waterless urinals on a mass scale across the national capital, such eco-friendly units may also come up at some Metro stations soon and at the city airport in future.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is installing Kupple (cartridge-less) waterless urinals at 11 of its stations while the Airport Authority of India (AAI) will pilot test 'eco loos' at the IGI airport, say officials.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has already installed nearly 500 waterless urinals across the city, most of them before the Commonwealth Games in October last year.

These urinals help save water, have lesser bacteria, no odour, are more hygienic and require less maintenance. "Due to absence of water and contact with air, urine does not form any gas and the toilet remains odour-free," said an MCD official.

A spokesman of AG Aqua Solutions, which has supplied such units to both MCD and DMRC, said the urinals function on gravitational pull concept and have flap technology that stops the backward migration of odour.

"There's also cost savings. As the unit requires no recurring costs, one ends up saving Rs 7,000 per month on operational costs, and the maintenance routine is simple, quick and touch-free," said Sabyasachi Dasgupta, Sales

Manager, AG Aqua.

It is estimated that up to 20 per cent of the available drinking water in the world is flushed down the drain. In addition, leakage of water lines may add eight per cent more to the above. Water-saving products are thus attracting

attention of governments and corporates across the world.

MCD has installed these urinals at places like ITO, Indira Gandhi Stadium, ESI Hospital, Raja Garden, Ashok Vihar,Rohini, Prashant Vihar, Mukherjee Nagar, Old Delhi Railway station, New Delhi Railway Station, Kailash Colony and ISBT.

The civic body which had unveiled the first waterless urinal at Kashmiri Gate on the World Environment Day in 2009, went on to conduct a pilot project along with the private firm and then launched the scheme to install such units on a

large scale.

In recent times, however, it has faced some hurdles due to difficulties in garnering enough advertisements for the sites. The urinals have advertisement panels on two sides from which MCD hoped to earn big revenue.

When asked about the future of the waterless urinal scheme in view of this problem, a senior MCD official maintained that the project is important and there is no possibility of scrapping it midway.