A goods wagon train, carrying 5.4 lakh litres of drinking water, departed on a trial run from Miraj in western Maharashtra to parched latur town in Marathwada on Monday morning. The train is expected to reach latur in the early hours of Tuesday.
The goods train, carrying 10 wagons with capacity of 54,000 litres of water, left Miraj at 11.10 am and is expected to 18 to 19 hours to reach latur, which is 342 km away from the railway junction town in western Maharashtra. “We expect the water train to reach latur by 6 am tomorrow,” latur District Collector Pandurang Pole said in the evening.
In the normal course, the goods wagon was to carry 50 wagons of water from Miraj to latur on eech trip. However, with infrastructure not ready and adequate water having not been pumped into the wagons of the goods train that arrived at Miraj on Sunday, the authorities decided to send the train on a trial run to latur with just 10 wagons on Monday.
The first of the empty goods trains consisting of 50 tank wagons arrived at Miraj from Kota in Raja on Sunday. The second such wagon train will arrive in Miraj from Kota on April 15.
Official sources said that the first of the two goods train, carrying 50 wagons of drinking water, will leave for latur on a regular trip on April 17, while the second wagon train will head to latur two days later.
“We are working on a war-footing to ready the infrastructure to facilitate transportation of 25 litres of water in each of the two goods trains. There will in all be two such trips in three days from next week onwards,” a senior Revenue Ministry official said.
The drinking water meant for transportation to latur is being drawn from a drinking water plant located on the bank of Krishna river, 5 km away from Miraj railway station. Though the authorities were initially planning to filter the water drawn Krishna river at Miraj itself, they have now decided to take the water as it is to latur to save on time. Through a pipeline, the water is now being directly pumped into to the railway wagons stationed on platform number six of the Miraj railway station.
Once the train reaches latur, water will be taken by a pipeline and poured into a huge well with a capacity of 25 lakh litres – located on a nearby agricultural field. From the well, water will be taken to a nearby filtration plant before it is distributed among the residents of latur town, which is facing an unprecedented drinking water shortage.
Such has been severity of the drinking water shortage in latur town that the district authorities have imposed an order prohibiting the gathering of more than five persons in areas around 20 water storage tanks and other sources until May 31, as a precautionary measure to ensure against any possible violence over water. The notified water sources include all tanker-filling points, public wells and tankers.
