Vinod Anthony Thomas, a 10th-semester student of Faculty of Architecture (FOA), Manipal University, has bagged the second prize in an all-India competition for his design of an odourless and waterless toilet for the Indian Railways.

Vinod took part in a competition organized by Research Designs and Standards Organization, Lucknow. In response to PM Narendra Modi’s call for a clean India under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’, the completion was held to find innovative solutions to tackle common problems faced by the Indian railways.

Vinod’s toilet design is innovative in the way that it does away with problems such as accumulation and foul smell, caused due to lack of flushing. It also addresses the existing problem of disposing human waste on the tracks, which is, according to him, both unhygienic and environment-unfriendly.

According to a release by Manipal University, Vinod’s design replaces the present traditional flushing system with a conveyor, which carries waste in hermetically sealed pockets to a bin. It is run manually by a crank wheel and the bin has been designed to reduce the amount of waste of water by means of forced ventilation (evaporation of water) and decomposition.

Vinod’s design was adjudged the second best and he bagged Rs 75,000 as prize money. The second place was shared by another designer, Rahul Garg, and teammate Saurabh Hans.

“My design is simple and minimalistic, with importance given to hygiene, neatness and ease of use,” says Vinod Thomas.

With his win, we can expect long-distance train journeys are going to be more pleasant in the near future without any stinking toilets.