No money, Rotary Club shuts 15 public toilets for women

Nagpur: A couple of years ago, Rotary Club of Ishanya, in association with Nagpur Municipal Corporation, had constructed 15 public toilets especially for women. The toilets were constructed at commercial areas including Variety Square, NMC Gandhibagh zone office at Mahal, Baidyanath Square, Mangalwari Bazaar and Mhada Colony near Bhole Petrol pump. Now, all these toilets have been closed for a month for want of funds.
However, now Rotary Club has approached the civic body expressing its inability to operate and maintain them due to lack of funds, confirmed a senior officer from NMC’s sanitation department. These toilets were sponsored by city-based Calderays India Refractors Limited and each public toilet had cost Rs2.25 lakh.

Sources said operation and maintenance cost of each toilet is around Rs10,000-12,000 per month and the Club is finding it difficult to maintain these. As a result, it has locked these toilets a month ago.

Rotary Club had appointed an agency for operation and maintenance of the toilets. The urinals in the toilets were free, while it charged Rs5 for toilet use. It used to remain open between 7am and 10pm. Initially, it had planned to construct 35 more toilets on the same lines but due to lack of funds, it constructed only 15, sources said.

Sources pointed out that before starting such a facility with any organization, the civic body must explore or evaluate the operational cost also.

Actually the NMC might have ignored this aspect as went ahead to get marked and increase its rankings in Swachh Survekshan.

“Currently, NMC has 71 pay and use toilets and maintaining another 15 is not a big challenge for us,” the senior NMC officer said. The officer, however, pointed out that the NMC has provided the place to the NGO free of cost and has also given them rights to generate revenue from advertisements on these toilets for its operation and maintenance.

“But, now we have asked the Rotary Club of Ishanya to hand over the keys of toilets,” he said.

Brand ambassador of NMC’s Swachh Bharat Mission and founder of city-based NGO Green Vigil Kaustav Chatterjee said, “It is a pity that the public toilets sponsored by Calderys are getting closed.”

“While we boast Nagpur as open defecation free city and marching towards Swachh Bharat but ironically public toilets are being shut due to lack of ownership. Public toilets are a must for keeping city clean. Civic body needs to explore possibility of utilizing funds available for Swachh Bharat Mission in maintaining these toilets. Private Sectors can also take ownership of few toilets under CSR Funds,” he said.

Office-bearers from the NGO has appealed citizens and corporator offices to come forward to fund the maintenance of these public toilets.