Open defecation: BMC slammed for public shaming of perpetrators

Activists like Supriya Sonar, Convenor of the Right to Pee Campaign, took to tweeting about the incident which she described as a violation of human dignity.

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“We tweeted to the MCGM about the incident and we take a strong stand against it. The BMC is supposed to change the attitude of people rather than shaming them in public when they don’t have the right to do so. People don’t like to defecate in the public. They do so because the BMC has not provided enough toilets for them,” she said.

Social activist Medha Patkar said, “They really have no right to do this. There are lakhs of people living without toilets in Mumbai and without providing access to proper toilets, these officials don’t have the right to treat these people in this inhumane manner. The people of Mumbai have been fighting for toilets.”

She added that she had approached Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis last month and asked him to provide 10×30 blocks for the construction of toilets. “They need to spend a year and undertake a project that provides this to the 52 per cent of the population that is forced to defecate in the open instead of treating them this way,” she said.

Officials in the solid waste management department said no such instruction has been issued to the assistant municipal commissioners and that this initiative has been taken up on a ward level.

“Following the directions from the Union government on removing the open defecation sites of the city, we had a seminar on April 19 for creating awareness among people. Subsequently, we had directed the ward officials to carry out some activity in order to discourage people from defecating in the open. We haven’t given any specific instruction of public shaming,” said an official, requesting anonymity.
The slum sanitation department has been constructing new toilet blocks in the slum areas with the aim of eradicating the 117 open-defecation spots that have been identified in the city limits.

Officials in the department, however, said the civic officials should not indulge in public shaming.

“We work for the government and we are not permitted to abuse or mistreat people even if they are found guilty. Humiliating people in public is not the correct approach and is not going to achieve anything,” said another official from the sanitation department.

According to the records of the slum sanitation programme, there are 79,542 toilet seats in the city which cater to at least 24 lakh people living in slum areas. However, these toilet blocks are currently only serving 37 per cent of the total slum population of 64.7 lakh people, as per the 2001 census.

As per Swachh Bharat Mission guidelines, each toilet seat is for 30 users. Going by that calculation, the BMC is yet to construct at least 1.36 lakh seats to cater to the majority of the slum population, 63 per cent, which currently does not have access to toilets.

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