Indian Railways — suggestion for saving of water and use of plastic

Some time back i was travelling from delhi to dehradun in shatabdi express. It was an overall great experience in terms of booking, services, timeliness, catering and so on by #indianrailways.

However, i observed that at start of journey every passenger is given 1 lt water bottle. All shatabdi trains are air conditioned and the #water consumption of people is expected to be lower in cold environment.

I observed that by the time we were about to reach our destination, very few passengers finished the bottle (Hardly 10%), most of the passengers had utilized less than half bottle (Almost 70%) and some did not even open it (Almost 20%). After that most of them left the bottles at their seats itself, which posed additional danger of misuse of bottles and leftover water.

Assuming 100 trains per day carrying 500 passengers, 365 days a year it turns out to be more that 18 million lit of water and plastic of 18 million bottles, with large portion of water getting wasted and huge amount of #plastic getting into the system. No where in the world in any mode of transport, water is provided with so much of luxury.

I believe this issue can be easily addressed by putting #water dispensers of mineral water in every train coach and providing paper glasses to passengers, who can drink good water as per their convenience and need. I am sure this will be appreciated and welcomed by all commuters without any complains.

Not to mention it will result in multiple advantages in terms of reduced wastage of a precious resource - water, huge reduction in use of plastic bottles (Big #environmental issue), without any significant inconvenience to commuters.

Suggest #indianrailways to take an urgent note of this and take immediate action to change this practice