Bhubaneswar: Even as the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) decided to impose fines against open defecation and urination, inadequate public toilets seem a let-down to the drive to make the city cleaner and hygienic.
According to a BMC notification, people will now have to pay a penalty of Rs 200 for open defecation and Rs 150 for open urination. Ward officers and enforcement squads will impose the fines and give receipts to the violators.
Following which, local slum residents demanded that the BMC set up adequate public toilets in the city before imposing a penalty.
BMC Commissioner Prem Chand Choudhry clarified that the plan was to create awareness and raise civic sense. “The imposition of fine won’t go the hard and fast way. First, we will target the areas where there are existing toilets but people are not using them,” he added.
TOILET STORY
However, the scenario is not restricted to the slum areas. Even toilet facilities in offices and public buildings in the Odisha capital leave a lot to be desired.
According to a survey, offices in Bhubaneswar privilege bosses over those lower in the rungs in toilet facilities. The ones marked for top executives are usually well-maintained and well-equipped, while the toilets for the rest of the staff are generally dirty and badly taken care of. In some cases, they are too poor from the hygiene point of view.
The survey was conducted by Local Governance Network, a non-government organisation, ahead of the World Toilet Day on November 19. The United Nations approved day is observed to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and help achieve the organisation’s Sustainable Action Goal 6, which promises sanitation for all by 2030.
“The sample size for the survey was 327, including men and women, and the respondents included people working in government and non-government organisations among others,” said Piyush Rout of Local Governance Network.
The findings say that toilets are shoddily managed in offices and public buildings. Ventilation is usually poor, as is the lighting and water supply is available once in two days. This is one of the reasons why men prefer open spaces. Women use them for want of any other option. This is in sharp contrast to the facility available for bosses.
“Almost all women respondents used public toilets as a compulsion, not out of choice. A whopping 97 per cent of them said toilets were neither attractive, nor hygienic, nor clean,” Rout said.
He further said that 98 per cent of women respondents were of the same view during a similar survey in 2014. “They gave a rating of four out of 10 to public toilets in Bhubaneswar. It was 3 in 2014. In case of men, the rating was 1 in 2019. Overall, 87 per cent from both genders said they would prefer open spaces to public facilities,” he added.
The general perception of common toilets is they are for auto-rickshaw drivers and visitors to the city from other parts of the state who are in a hurry in the morning. Tourists, national and foreign, avoid them. They chose to go back to their hotels or find restrooms of restaurants. The primary reason is quality, he elaborated.
PUBLIC TOILETS
More than 180 public toilets have been constructed in the Odisha capital under Swachh Bharat, AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) and various schemes of the BMC. Besides, 18 e-toilets have been set up between Jayadev Vihar Square to Power House Square and Nicco Park Square to Rabindra Mandap Square.
The BMC has set a target to set up 37 e-toilets and bio-toilets within a year.
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