On one side under the PVNR Expressway pillar no. 32 is city’s only air-conditioned toilet. It is a plush affair without the usual rancid smell but the reassuring hum of the AC and three downy sofas. The toilet is mostly used by bus commuters travelling to Bengaluru. On the other side of the road, the pillar itself is a toilet. When Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi reached the Aramghar junction a few days ago, he was welcomed near the pillar by children and teachers holding their nose.
Toilet facility in the city vary between both these extremes, either they are ill-maintained or not enough for all. As the city gets ready to observe Swachata Hi Sewa to mark the third anniversary of the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission on Gandhi Jayanti, a status check on the streets of Hyderabad reveals a dismal picture.
There are no public toilets along the long stretches between Panjagutta and KBR Park. If there is one near Muffakah Jah College, finding the door is a tough task. And then the sliding door, the kind on airplanes, is difficult to open. If the flow of traffic is smooth, men stop by to ease themselves. About 100 toilets like this dot the city in unusable condition set up at a cost of ₹5 crore. “People don’t mind paying ₹5 and ₹10 for using our toilets. But there are people who see the price and walk out and ease themselves by the roadside. We cannot do anything about it,” says the contractor running the AC toilet.
It is not for want of trying. According to the civic body’s own estimates, 384 toilets have been added to the available facilities. It has taken a leaf out of Delhi administration policy by roping in 365 hotels and 435 fuel stations to open up their toilet facilities for public use. The city has 15 ‘She’ Toilets and 25 are in the process of being set up at various locations. But in a city with galloping population, this is too little and too late.
On the sprawling lawns of Tank Bund, between the statues of legendary heroes, the GHMC has constructed dozens of toilets. “Even if we clean them, people come and reduce it to the same state,” says a sanitary worker near one of the statues. Inside the toilets, there are bricks, bottles, clothes, diapers and unimaginable filth. While the 150 wards of Hyderabad are being claimed as Open Defecation-Free, the city itself fails the key test of “freedom from odour and unsightly condition”, which is the definition for ODF verification under the Swachh Bharat Mission. “Yes, we don’t have the required number of toilets needed for the population of the city. We are pushing for increasing the numbers by all means possible. The maintenance of toilets is being outsourced, so that they can be answerable. The She Toilets are fairly clean, being monitored from Bengaluru and they are being used by a large number of people,” said a GHMC official.