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Imagine getting chilled, potable water — that complies with WHO standards — for ₹5 a litre, ₹3 for half a litre and ₹1-2 per container or glasses. This is exactly what will happen at 1,200 railway stations across the country soon.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) plans to set up 5,000 water vending machines across 1,200 railway stations. This will create business opportunities for companies in the water vending space such as Ion Exchange, Eureka Forbes, and Kent RO.
Other vendors include SR Paryavaran, Hitech Sweet Water, Virindavan Enterprise, Fontus Water, Acer Engineers, Meghdoot Media, Raj Water, Rite Water Solutions, Aquatech RO, Sai Balaji Water, Smaat India and Jain Sabkuchh Food.
IRCTC’s Chairman and Managing Director AK Manocha recently told BusinessLine that 21 vendors have been empanelled who can provide potable, chilled water through such vending machines, and there will be two vending machines per platform.
The machines will provide water to train passengers at ₹1-5 based on the quantity. Such projects are already being implemented on a pilot basis at Bengaluru and Chennai railway stations. The Bengaluru station has a capacity to serve 200 litres per hour.
Many of the projects are being taken up as CSR activities by the corporates. For the vending machines that can be used on RO technology, usually 65-70 per cent water is wasted, for which IRCTC made a parameter that not more than 40 per cent of water should be wasted.
The outlet water will be recycled for use in toilets at stations, said Manocha. Those who run the vending machines will pay certain lease rentals, which will be shared between IRCTC and the Railways.
Cost of input water and electricity will be borne by the vendor setting up the unit. The project is expected create employment as people will be manning the vending machines. Manocha had done a pilot of a similar project about 15 years ago in the Delhi division.
The public sector unit’s bottled water business — which rolls out Rail Neer branded water — has a capacity to produce 14 crore one-litre bottles of water a year, of which 10 crore were produced last year.
Rail Neer bottles account for one-fifth of the bottled water sold in trains. IRCTC earned almost ₹100 crore from Rail Neer sales in 2014-15, registering 10 per cent growth over the previous year.
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