Railway man’s fumigation chamber wins PM award
CHENNAI: B Selvam, a senior section engineer at the Basin Bridge train care centre
in Chennai, had a problem. The pesticides meant to sanitise train
coaches weren't working. Determined to find a solution, he scoured the
crevices of a coach with a pencil camera attached to a laptop. What he
found — colonies of pests and bed bugs behind walls, floors and the roof
— spurred him to devise a fumigation chamber.
It not only proved a success but also won him the Prime Minister's Shram Vir award for 2012. "I used a network of narrow tubes through which poisonous methyl bromide gas was pumped into the crevices of coaches. A chamber was made so that coaches could be kept in isolation," said Selvam.
Southern Railway chief mechanical engineer S K Sood said, "The gap between the inner walls and the metal shell is six inches wide and there was no way to send pesticides into the gap. A chamber was made of used rexine to accommodate a coach so that fumigation could be done without affecting workers."
After it proved a success, a chamber to accommodate three coaches was made at the yard last year. The coaches treated in the chamber remain pest-free for six months.
Southern Railway general manager Rakesh Misra said, "Last year, we got a lot of complaints about pests in coaches. Now, the complaints have come down."
It not only proved a success but also won him the Prime Minister's Shram Vir award for 2012. "I used a network of narrow tubes through which poisonous methyl bromide gas was pumped into the crevices of coaches. A chamber was made so that coaches could be kept in isolation," said Selvam.
Southern Railway chief mechanical engineer S K Sood said, "The gap between the inner walls and the metal shell is six inches wide and there was no way to send pesticides into the gap. A chamber was made of used rexine to accommodate a coach so that fumigation could be done without affecting workers."
After it proved a success, a chamber to accommodate three coaches was made at the yard last year. The coaches treated in the chamber remain pest-free for six months.
Southern Railway general manager Rakesh Misra said, "Last year, we got a lot of complaints about pests in coaches. Now, the complaints have come down."
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