Cochin International Airport: Runway to Drought

Runway to Drought

It was early morning of 7th of April 2013 when I was in the famed Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL)- COK in the state of Kerala, India. Nedumbassery is the place where this airport is located and caters to almost 46,00,000 passengers every year.

But the thought behind the blog is not to highlight the efficient management of this airport but to throw light on the blatant misuse of water when the entire state and the country is reeling in drought.

Domestic Terminal Gents Rest room: There are more than 15 urinals in the rest room and I observed that they had manual flushing option with the Valve positioned high up the urinal panels. There was one or two taps for a panel. And probably for the convenience of the cleaning staff they had kept the taps open. Liters of water were being flushed continuously through the urinals for no use. 

Under the various known water regulations, urinals should use no more than 7.5 liters per bowl per hour (10 liters for a single bowl) and should have a device fitted to prevent flushing when the building is not being used. In practice, flow rates are rarely measured and will drift with time, or are deliberately increased in a usually vain attempt to solve odor problems.

Which means CIAL in order to have a clean urinal bowl is flushing almost 150 to 200 Liters per hour in the rest room. Which by any ballpark calculation is amazingly lot of water to be lost on a 24 hours cycle. 

Escalation: 

1. Seeing the water wastage, I closed all the taps and approached the Terminal Manager who put it on to the top management for not adopting to controllers in the rest rooms. Also with a planned renovation in the offing he subtly indicated that this system is there to remain for a long while. 
2. On the 11th April I called up the Airport Director (APD) and informed him of the wastage  A seemingly surprised APD assured me of immediate action. 
3. Same day I sent mails to the PRO of CIAL (pro@cial.aero) highlighting the water wastage. He assured me of advising the Civil Engineering team about this. Till date I have no clue why Civil Engineering team is required instead of issuing directives to the cleaning staff to limit the water wastage. 

Mail from PRO

Anyway I was happy to see pro activeness from CIAL and looked forward for my next flight from COK. 

18th April 2013:And it happened on this day! Exactly one week after the whole mail and phone communications. And what did I see?

No actions were taken and water is still being wasted at CIAL. 

Is anyone listening?