[box type=”shadow” ]Railways, the world’s largest network of transportation, carries over 23 million passengers daily across the country. Chugging through ‘tunnels’, it has been constantly evolving to roll out washed and clean linen to its long and short distant passengers. Suprita Anupam extracts detailed information of linen passing through the washers at Indian Railways and presents an exclusive feature on the facts and figures of Railway laundry.[/box]
Be it ‘Palace on Wheels’ one of the costliest and best trains providing world class facilities or the ‘Garib Rath’, an Express with AC coaches at affordable prices, Indian Railways – the lifeline of Indian commuters – chugs ‘Up and Down’ to meet the varying requirement of its passengers.
One of the varied and most essential requirements of long distance passengers today is clean linen besides clean coaches and clean washrooms. The most-used running towel or bedroll in the AC coaches is a haven of bacteria, fungus and yeast. The microbes thrive in damp environment and on use may rub off dead skin cells too. Such towels can transmit pathogens causing skin and eye infections. Moreover, pale white bed sheets and towels give an unpleasant travel experience.
The laundry practices at IR saw a change after 2009, when it felt the urgency of having in-house mechanized laundries. By 2013, the Railways had only about 21 in house laundry set ups but many of them were manual. Merely 30% of linen supplied on IR had been brought under these existing laundries, rest were being outsourced with poor monitoring and quality control.
With complaints from across zones, IR then decided to bring 42 additional mechanized laundries, covering 90% of the linen under the scheme to ensure clean linen for its passengers. Alongside, it adopted specific best practices to provide uniform results.
Current Guidelines
PP Singh, ADME- Mumbai Central Division, explains the IR guidelines being followed to monitor the quality of linen per wash.
- Minimum level of whiteness of linen should be 85% after washing given the fact that whiteness of new bed sheets after five washes remains 100%.
- There should be no wrinkles and wetness after calendaring. Hand towel should retain its soft feel and water absorbing capacity
and linen should be hygienic, bacteria & stain free and odorless. - Linen items not meeting the above criteria shall be rejected and no payment will be made against such rejection.
- The tenderer is also required to provide instruments for checking the whiteness of linen and other quality related parameters as the case may be. These instruments shall be calibrated at regular intervals as per norms or whenever asked to do so by the railway.
Economic Viability
Behind the curtains, local issues have always been dominant, be it for water supply or for getting the right vendor or most importantly, for economic viability. Central Railway GM S.K. Sood explains, “Firstly, we need to ensure the right quality of clean linen as per the given set of standards. Secondly, we have to keep it under the budget of `25 per use which was fixed about 15 years ago and had not been revised over the period.”
[box type=”shadow” ]With over 7,500 AC coaches, 90 million bedrolls used annually, Indian Railways is the largest consumer and market for the Indian laundry segment. Working towards bringing 90% of its current linen use under in-house laundry setup, IR has 38 working plants and about 26 more are under the installation/ planning stage.[/box]
The washing costs then were merely `12-15 per bedroll and the rest was the cost of linen. By 2005-06, the cost had increased to around `30. Resultantly, the quality of cleaning too was not satisfactory.
“This was the time to economies and resale the cleaning & hygiene of linen and time to have in-house laundries based on economy of scale. The economy of scale in laundry helped reduce our cost from `30 to `18-20.
However, now the cost is almost `25. This includes the cost of bedrolls too. Considering the approximate lifespan of a bedroll at 100 washes, the capital cost per bedroll is around `5 per use and washing at `20-21. We might have to increase charges post two to three years.”
“We have two types of laundries — front loading washer extractor and the Tunnel laundry system. This system is very economical compared to manual washing.”
Existing Laundries
Mechanized laundries have already been set up in the yards at Mumbai, Howrah, Sealdah, two in Kamakhya, Lucknow, Varanasi, Jammu Tawi, Secunderabad, Hyderabad, Tatanagar, Indore, Junagarh, Durg, Bilaspur, Samastipur, Danapur and Jabalpur, including three state-of-the-art laundries on Built Own Operate Transfer (BOOT) model through private investment at Chennai, Ahmadabad and Wadi Bunder (Mumbai). From 2013-14 till date, 13 additional mechanized laundries have been set up.
Western Railway, the biggest linen consumer among all the 16 zones, has five in-house laundries with a total capacity of washing 31,000 bedrolls daily. This includes a laundry each at Ahmedabad (16,000 bedrolls daily), Mumbai (6,000/day), Indore (4,000/day), Junagadh (3,000/day) and Surat (2,000/day).
The railways architecture is fascinating. So many variables! Some of the divisions have got no laundry facilities while some have multiple. Vashishta Johri, GM-Southern Railway, explains, “Gradually we are shifting to our own in-house laundries to various models – either we set up departmentally or under BOOT. Laundry requirements at a location depend on the number of major trains originating from there. This is because linen is loaded to trains at their originating points.”
“The South Central Railway (SCR) has got two mechanised laundries at Kacheguda and Secunderabad. Recently installed 12-tonne mechanised laundry has a capacity of washing 24,000 bedsheets, 12,000 face towels and 12,000 pillow covers per day. It is expected to meet the requirements of Secunderabad and Hyderabad divisions of the zone,” says S. Siddeshwara Rao, EME-Planning, SCR..
“Installation of mechanised laundry @ IR helped sustain the cost of bedroll cum wash for approximately 20-25 years.”
[box type=”shadow” ]“Installation of mechanised laundry @ IR helped sustain the cost of bedroll cum wash for approximately 20-25 years.”[/box]
Chemicals & Linen Management
As per the railway guidelines, the contractor must ensure a minimum level of whiteness index at all times for all the constituents of the linen kit. The contractor must ensure that used linen as uploaded from the trains, must be washed and made available for train services within 48 hours. Railways too have to make proper assessment of daily requirements of washed linen kits.
The contractor must accordingly ensure enough buffer stock to cater to the requirements of at least two to three days so that the train services is not affected.
There are provisions for penalties, if the service is sub-standard. For example, if during the sampling checks, it is found that hygiene quality is not satisfactory, a penalty of `3 per article can be imposed on the contractor, apart from non-payment of washing charges. G.C. Agrawal, GM-Western Railway avers, “At WR, laundries are being operated by proficient agencies and the cleaning chemicals have been chosen after lab tests by RDSO in Lucknow, to ensure high levels of cleaning and hygiene. The laundries are sanitized daily and Railway inspection staff are deployed with instruments to measure the quality of each stage of
the cleaning and the packing processes.”
Speaking about chemicals and detergents being used, he says, “All cleaning chemi
cals have been chosen by RDSO after extensive laboratory testing. These include the Diversey and Ecolab brands of cleaning chemicals. Liquid detergents with optical brighter STD, chlorine bleach, liquid neutralizer and alkaline builder are used for bedsheet and pillow cover. Liquid detergents with optical brighter STD liquid emulsifier concentrate STD, chlorine bleach, liquid neutralizer fabric softener concentrate and alkaline builder are used for cleaning the face towels.”
At Indore, “chemicals that are used for linen cleaning are: Clax-2005 (Eco. Star D. Stainer), Clax Universal, Clax Hypo (Sodium hypochloride), Eco Star Oxibright, Clax-CID, Clax Soft and Clax Build (Eco Star Builder),” explains Ajay Thakur, CPIO-Ratlam Division.
[box type=”shadow” ]What is BOOT model?
Laundries under BOOT model are installed under a public-private partnership (PPP) project. According to IR circular, a minimum workload of 75% of the average daily requirement (calculated on a monthly basis) is the assured off take from the laundry and payments to the contractor for this volume is guaranteed (subject to penalties and other conditions for non-satisfactory performance). The infrastructure and facilities to be provided by the contractor for setting up of the mechanized laundry must have a cushion/ margin to cater to an increase of up to 25% of the estimated workload, during the contract without incurring any additional cost.
For smaller capacity laundries, washer cum extractor, tumbler drier and flatbed ironer/ calendaring machines are approved models and for large capacity, tunnel type washers have been approved.
Having witnessed the success of Chennai based laundry installed under BOOT model with better quality at lower prices, the SR are in the process of installing more laundries at Madurai, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram. Other zones too have come up with plans to install more laundries.
“Currently, four laundries are operating under BOOT; 15 installations are in process and would be operational by 2016,” says Anil Kumar Saxena, Additional Director General- PR, Indian Railways.[/box]
“Stains & dyes at times could create washing issues. However, the mechanized laundry is aptly handling these stains, as clothes are further segregated and sent to the detergent area of the tunnel washer again. Chemical provider Diversey too has made some new customised chemicals, especially for heavily stained clothes, only for Indian Railways,” says Sood.
As far as the technology is concerned, “I would not say that there is a big change awaiting, as the present technology seems sound to tackle all the issues. Having said that, over a period of time, washer extractors might shift to the tunnel technology owing to increasing water scarcity. This is indeed a big issue, as we have already stopped the washing of coaches and do wet mopping instead.”
Technology/chemicals’ formulation cannot alone flout the essentiality of water in various applications including linen cleaning at IR. “Struggling with water scarcity, we are not even able to clean all the trains as required. To deal with this issue, I have recently commissioned a plant which is generating about five lakh litres of water daily from the city drains and railway colony drains at Sholapur. The water is then recycled to use for cleaning purposes,” says Sood.
*Data used in the article is based on RTIs filed and Indian Railways’ official statements.