After decades of gender disparity with regard to the number of toilets for men and women, here comes a ray of hope as new public toilets in Mumbai will have a standard 50-50 ratio for both the sexes. As of now, there was only one toilet for women while men had three. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is going to build 22,774 new toilets in the next year and a half and 50 per cent or more than 11k toilets will be available for women.

As per the latest data received by the Praja Foundation through RTI, there is 66 per cent disparity between toilets for men and women. There are 9,646 public toilets for men whereas, for women, the number is just 3,237. The study showed that the island city, which spreads from Colaba to Wadala, having a huge floating population has the maximum amount of disparity.

The BMC has been building more public toilets in the last two to three years, but the disparity has not been diminished. “Now, the civic body is building 22,774 toilets under the Swachh Bharat Mission, out of which 50 per cent will be for women as per the new guidelines,” said an officer from the Solid Waste Management Department of the BMC. In January, the civic body had passed an order to construct 14,097 toilets at a cost of Rs422 crore. Now, the BMC is in the process of handing over a contract for another 1,729 toilets at a cost of Rs75 crore.

“Allowing more toilets to women is a step in a good direction, but the city needs much more numbers of toilet considering the 1.24 crore population and more than 50 lakh floating population. Even it is important to have more public toilets in the business areas,” said Milind Mhaske, project director at Praja Foundation.

“Increasing women toilets is a good thing. But what about children, elders, specially-abled persons? After much effort, they are ready to build children toilet on 22 out of 41 spots in M East Ward. Why they need follow-ups and demands for every single thing?” said Supriya Sonar, an activist from Right to Pee movement.