Ministry wants at least one clean toilet in all public places

The letter was sent by the ministry through a joint secretary to all principal secretaries, Urban Development and Housing and all state governments on March 11. The ministry has also called for a monitoring system to ensure that the facilities are well maintained.

[related-post]

Stating that the government had been receiving “repeated representations” from the public, requesting that all public offices should have clean toilets for public use, the ministry has sought the availability of “at least one clean toilet’ in every public office and public space.

“As you are aware, the Swachh Bharat Mission has been launched on October 2, 2014 under which open defecation-free villages/ towns and communities are to be achieved by October 2, 2019. The Government of India has been receiving repeated representations from the public requesting that all public offices should have clean toilets for the use of the public. In this domain falls banks, post offices, petrol pumps, bus stops, railway stations, Metro stations, hospitals, schools, health centres, anganwadis, citizen centers, etc.,” the letter said.

A senior ministry official said, “There have been lots of complaints on how toilets meant for public use are either lying vandalised or cannot be used simply because they are not clean. Public toilets are a necessity and have to be installed at regular intervals across cities. Women and children face the biggest problem and there have to be such basic facilities. Under the mission, the government has targeted to build 1.04 crore household toilets and five lakh community and public toilets by 2019”.

“For the convenience of the public, at each public place, there should be at least one toilet available. It has also come to our notice that in some cases where a toilet is provided, it is either kept locked or lacks cleanliness and therefore remains unusable,” he said.

“Keeping in view the above mentioned facts, instructions may be issued to all municipal commissioners, civic bodies etc. to ensure that toilets are kept in a working condition and are open for public use at the earliest,” the letter further stated.