Are Namma Toilets, a special initiative taken to provide sanitation facilities for the physically challenged, and exclusive units for men and women serving the desired purpose?

Actually, no. With miscreants stealing fittings from the complexes powered by solar energy, the public have been unable to access it.

Even though the Namma toilets project was launched with much fanfare, there are several practical problems on the ground. The Tiruchi City Corporation had, during 2013-2014 set up 17 Namma toilets at a cost of ₹11 lakhs each in Srirangam, Ariyamangalam and Ponmalai zones.

Of the 17, at least 12 seem to be in dilapidated conditions. "Either the doors are missing, or the taps and latrines have been stolen. A toilet was inaugurated at a park and the day after the inauguration the closet at the toilet was stolen," said an official of the city corporation.

Although named namma, the public show no ownership of the toilets, lament officials. “The people need to treat public properties with respect. Lots of time, effort and funding is spent on it, but the facilities are tampered with and damaged,” said N. Ravichandran, Corporation Commissioner.

Maintenance and security of these Namma toilets add to the issue. “These toilets do not have any self-cleaning mechanism, and someone has to be employed to clean it up. If there is no water within and in the vicinity of toilets, it is likely to promote manual scavenging. Employing manual scavengers is a punishable offence, and eradication of the same is also an objective of the Swacch Bharat Mission,” said a corporation official who added that employing people to watch over the public toilets is not possible as there were no funds for it.

However, public toilets constructed and maintained by the civic body as part of the Smart City plan seem to be in better shape. “The public toilets in both Chatram and Central bus stand are in good condition. It might be because someone is there to clean it and maintain it. A special cabin exclusively for women to wait, feed babies and change diapers is also available," said a passenger at the Chatram bus stand.

Handing over management of the toilets to SHGs has also proven to be a success. Gramalaya, a local NGO with the help of Wateraid arranged for federations of SHGs to maintain already existing public toilets. Named Women’s Action for Village Empowerment (Wave), they maintain about 200 public toilets in Tiruchi district.

“Wave is trained to maintain financial records, manage resources and ensure proper maintenance of the facilities under the 'pay and use' mechanism. The revenue is used to buy maintenance equipment like disinfectants and mops,” says S. Damodaran, Founder, Gramalaya.