Manipal: An architecture pass out will think of designing big palatial homes and bags awards, but this student of Manipal University had made headlines by designing a waterless and odourless toilet for the Indian Railways- something that is need of the hour considering the state of toilets in the railways.

                                          Vinod Anthony Thomas, FOA student of Manipal University

Meet Vinod Anthony Thomas, tenth semester student of Faculty of Architecture (FOA), Manipal University.

He participated in an all-India competition organized by Research Designs and Standards Organization, Lucknow in backdrop of Prime Minister’s clean India initiative.

The competition was to design a toilet for operation and maintenance and the jury comprising of experts from railways, industry and academia/research fields shortlisted ten designs. The designs were to be submitted on May 31, 2016. Vinod’s design was adjudged the second best in the results announced on June 14, 2016 and bagged Rs 75,000 as prize money. However, the second place was shared by another designer, Rahul Garg and team member Saurabh Hans.

The design done by Vinod focused on waste management, which prevents generation of foul smell and replacing the system of flushing toilets with water by a conveyor system carrying waste in a hermetically sealed pocket to a large collection bin to store waste and is run manually by a crank wheel. The bin has been designed in a way to reduce the amount of waste by way of decomposition and forced ventilation (evaporation of water).

                                                                Vinod’s Railway toilet design