Aafrin Kidwai 
The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has commissioned an incinerator plant for solid waste management at Kamakhya Coaching Depot. Energy will be produced in the incinerator plant from the waste collected from railway colonies and stations for producing steam, which will be used in the mechanized laundry at the depot.
The Morung Express reports that the Plant was built at a cost of about Rs 38 lakh. At the plant, CORT (Compressed Oxygen Regulatory Technology) will be used for the complete burning of solid waste. The incinerator will be burning about 150 kg of solid waste per hour while producing about 800 litre hot water each hour for use in the mechanised laundry.
There is a mechanised laundry at Kamakhya station area which cleans the linens used by passengers of other trains. Softened water from an RO plant of 2000 litre per hour capacity is used to clean soiled linens. Hence, a lot of energy is required to operate the entire facility. Railway authorities expect that with the introduction of this incinerator plant, there will be savings of about 200 litres of diesel fuel per day with related saving in cost.
Picture Credit: UY Scuti, WDM-3D class Locomotive of Indian Railway, CC BY-SA 3.0
