Free toilet blocks for slums

MUMBAI, June 10: Just as the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government attempts to find ways to speed up the implementation of it...

MUMBAI, June 10: Just as the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance government attempts to find ways to speed up the implementation of its ambitious Slum Redevelopment Scheme, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has, almost at a tangent, decided to activate its year-old proposal to provide more than one lakh toilets to slumdwellers in Mumbai.

Disclosing this at a press conference today, deputy mayor Gopal Shetty, who is also in-charge of the civic water supply and sewerage portfolio, announced that free toilet blocks would be constructed in the city’s slum pockets to implement the “first ever” Slum Sanitation Scheme. Residents whose societies will be formed will have a personal stake in the construction of the toilets, Shetty told mediapersons.

While the societies will be responsible for the maintenance of the toilets, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will provide free electricity, water supply and sewerage outlets, Shetty informed.

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The Rs 60 crore project, backed by the World Bank,intends to empower people to take the initiative to improve their sanitary conditions. Four non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been selected to publicise this new scheme, whereby every adult slumdweller will pay a one-time payment of Rs 100, including Rs 10 as registration fees, towards the toilet. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation intends to take this amount in part payments, considering the inability of slumdwellers to pay the entire sum at once.

The scheme will be first tested in 4 of the 23 wards across the city. These are the G-North (Dharavi), M-East, M-West and K-East wards. Bid documents will be out towards the end of this month, and following approval, the scheme will take off, Shetty said. The scheme will virtually clip the wings of Sulabh International, who pioneered the concept of paying to use public toilets. But in this case, the slumdwellers will become the virtual owners of the toilet blocks.

Shetty denied that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation was speeding at a tangentvis-a-vis the Shiv Sena-BJP government’s scheme of providing free houses to 40 lakh slum dwellers. “Our scheme will be implemented in slums where the SRD is not applicable,” Shetty clarified. However, he did not specify the areas listed under the two schemes.

The civic body has notified 172 areas as slum pockets. For those areas which are under the port’s or the Central government’s authority, no objection certificates will be acquired from the Central government, he pointed out.

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Replying to a question, he said that those hutments constructed after January 1, 1995, will not be beneficiaries of the sanitation scheme. “The hutments which were built before January 1, 1995, are going to be demolished after the monsoon. There is absolutely no question of including them in the scheme,” he asserted.

He maintained that the scheme was completely indigenous, adding that the Ghatkopar Tunnel, for which consultants Binnie and Partners (B&P) had quoted a sum of Rs 2.20 crores towards costs, had beensignificantly reassessed by civic officials and came to just Rs 20 lakhs. The decision to blacklist Binnie was yet to be taken, he informed. Shetty, who visited the Lovegrove Pumping Station in Worli to check its progress, informed that several outfall works were completed.

The Slum Sanitation Scheme is an adjunct to the $ 295.6 million World Bank-funded Bombay Sewerage Disposal Project, under which work is in progress at several places in the metropolis.

The project, which began in October 1995, is slated to be completed by December 31, 1998, Shetty informed.