India Matters - Toilet Stories From The Capital

9/5/23, 11:30 AM India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital
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News india-news India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital A
This Article is From Nov 08, 2014
India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital

Sutapa Deb Updated: November 08, 2014 10:33 am IST
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Nayanthara Nearly 13 per cent of the population in urban India defecate in the open. In the
capital, Delhi, while there are no precise figures, the number of those defecating
in the open as they don't have a toilet is substantial.
INDIA Bloc's 1st Test
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Minister Narender Modi has promised to build 100 million toilets across the
country.
Opinion: What
Singapore's New
Indian-Origin The irony, however, is that existing community toilets are falling into disrepair. A Shah Rukh Khan,
President Says On Ahead Of Jawan's
few years after they are built, they are not fit for use.
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Colour Printer The community toilet complex at Savda Ghevra in North West Delhi is a case in
₹5,599
point. It is decrepit and broken down and appears to be fit for demolition. Over 22
(11% off) of the 40 toilet seats are non-functional.
A
A
This is the fate of a five-year-old community toilet that has no operation and
maintenance plan.
But let's begin at the beginning.

Whirlpool 240 L Frost Free
Multi-Door Refrigerator
₹25,700 This is Shalu's life as she knows it. The 21 year old is a student of BA second year
(16% off) at Delhi University's School of Open Learning. Home is a 6 feet by 10 feet room at
block 18 in Kalyanpuri, one of the oldest jhuggi jhopdi clusters in East Delhi.
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It is a space shared by five adults: her parents who work as tailors and her two
A
brothers. There is a bed and a cooking area but it is too small to build the toilet
that the family needs. They use a corner to bathe and urinate. A hole in the wall is
an outlet to the open drain outside.
Only 45 per cent of Delhi has sewage connection.

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Says Shalu, "We use it when no is around. If someone isNDTV
at home, we ask them to
step out. Read Next Story
It is difficult but we have to manage."
The 1,200 families living in the cluster where earlier served by a community toilet,
but it was closed down by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi or MCD seven years
ago. To access a toilet now, they walk one km to Khichripur.
Babita, Shalu's neighbour, recalls how difficult it was to walk to the toilet when
she was pregnant. "My hands and feet were swollen. Sometimes I would feel
giddy. So I would take a break and sit down somewhere."
LIVE TV India
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INDIA VIDEO Stories
childrenWORLDFromOPINION
defecatethe Capital
in the open drainsEDUCATION
CITIES outside their homes, the
OFFBEAT fecal
FEATURE TRENDS
matter creating an unhealthy environment for the residents. The toilet complex at
Khichripur compounds their indignity. Dirty and poorly maintained, it fails to meet
appropriate standards. There are no dust bins, no system to flush. Nearly 10 of
the 40 toilets seats are clogged but they are neither clean nor kept locked to
users, aggravating the unsanitary conditions. With the toilet complex closed
between 10 pm and 5 am, many users continue to resort to open defecation in
the forested area nearby.
Vinod Kumar Sharma, MCD sanitary inspector, blamed women for throwing cloth
into the toilets, clogging them. His workers had tried to make them work, but
failed.
"What is the solution? If I install a number of dustbins personally, the next

morning they will be gone," said Mr Sharma.
At another toilet complex in Kalyanpuri, sanitation workers give us a glimpse of

the operating and maintenance problems.
Dinesh Kumar, MCD sanitation worker, said, "When we go to clean the toilets, we
are often shouted at by people consuming smack there. They ask us to stop our
work. They are capable of slashing our faces with a razor blade. So we stay away
and don't clean those areas."
His colleague Bansi requests us to appoint a guard at the toilet. "I face a lot of
problems. I clean one place and the women make a mess somewhere else. They
defecate anywhere. I don't have any equipment to clean the place. I throw mud
and scoop it on a plate. Even the pipe has not been spared. It has been broken at
multiple points and I get wet. There's no brush, no broom to clean the mess.
Should I use my hands?"
Women of the community have been going from pillar to post for nearly seven
years, demanding a community toilet complex near their cluster; the cause
brought them together to form the Mahila Pragati Manch

About a year ago, the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board or DUSIB or started
A
construction on a toilet complex with 52 toilet seats in the block 18 cluster. 26
seats are for women and 26 for men; the Manch is monitoring the construction
and keeping a check on materials. They have asked for a higher wall between the
men's and women's toilets and guards for security.

However, the question is once this toilet complex is operational,
This Date will it go the way
of old ones? Construction of new community toilet complexes
NDTV like this one is only
one half of the sanitation story. The other half is operation and maintenance. Read Next Story
Despite its obvious significance, operation and maintenance has not received the
necessary focus.
Government agencies like DUSIB and MCD have no new solutions for revitalising
the public delivery systems.
At Kalyanpuri, the DUSIB has taken tentative steps to partner with the community
in the monitoring and supervision of toilets. But the engagement is yet to take off
in a meaningful, long-term manner.
There are also questions about the financial viability of existing policies for
maintenance of toilet buildings and sewer connections, for provision of electricity
and water supply, for hiring caretakers and 24-hour cleaning staff.
"We want the government to prepare for it. It should make an adequate budget
allocation, spread awareness and involve the community to participate actively. It
can't achieve success otherwise," said Vimla, a member of the Mahila Pragati
Manch.
There is an unmistakable sense of deja vu as we visit a community toilet complex

near the jhuggi jhopri cluster of Raghuveer Nagar, Rajouri Garden, in West Delhi.
We are accompanied by Anita Bhargava, who started a citizen's initiative to make

sanitation in Delhi world class, four years ago.
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The toilet complex is not for the fainthearted; there's an impossible stench, and
faecal matter is lying in clogged drains and pans. We are told these holes in the
wall have been made by peeping toms.
Women bathe in the open outside, stringing up their sarees as make-shift walls
for some semblance of privacy.

Most of them belong to Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat and are hawkers in the old
clothes market nearby. Approximately 6,000 people live in the cluster.
"There are no taps, there is no water, there are no doors. There is no electricity in
there, there is not a single bulb. So it's really difficult to convince people to use
there, there is not a single bulb. So it s really difficult to convince people to use
toilets when the condition is like that. I don't think you and me can use this toilet,"
said Anita Bhargava. A
There are different management systems for the city's toilets. Toilets like the one
in Raghubir Nagar are maintained by municipal employees. Some toilets were
given to NGOs to maintain on a 30-year contract. But that too failed since there
was no revenue model. The contracts were flawed and Jailer
monitoring systems
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Manjinder Singh Sirsa, a Shiromani Akali Dal MLA from Rajouri Garden, said, "For
the last 18 years, these NGOs have been handling these toilets, but they have
done nothing to manage these toilets. They only subcontracted it further. We
don't have a management system and we don't have good contracts. You need
people who will say, 'I will manage 100 clusters of toilets and provide the best
facilities, you hand it over to me and I will generate revenue'. But our system will
object to the fact that revenue is being generated."
Anita Bhargava agrees, "Give the contract to large facility monitoring companies.
Make the contract attractive so that it's an economically viable contract for a
large facilities management company and then monitor it carefully. Get a daily
report from them on the condition of the toilets, get citizen monitoring and if
there is a false report, the penalty should be extremely high."
There are about 700 slum clusters or jhuggi jhopdis in Delhi. Almost 3 lakh
families living in these slums are in dire need of basic services.
Amar Nath, CEO of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board, said, "If we go by
the terms of accepted standards available for providing toilet seats to people,
almost 40 per cent of the people may not have toilets. An estimated 20-30
percent of what is available may not be functioning at all. But now, in view of the
Prime Minister's focus on slums, our organisation is also gearing up for that. Our
budget for toilets has increased by almost twice since last year and we have
identified various issues and we are working on that."
One issue is the multiplicity of agencies. All of them need to play their role in
making Delhi open-defecation free. DUSIB maintains a majority of the slum
toilets now, but it directly does not provide cleaning facilities - that job is the
responsibility of the municipal corporations. Another agency, the Delhi Jal Board,
is responsible for sewer connections to toilets. Both DUSIB and MCD say they
want to outsource the operation and maintenance of toilets.
Manish Gupta, Commissioner of East Delhi and South Delhi Municipal

Corporations, said, "Our bids have recently been opened. What I plan to do in the
South Municipal Corporation is that the earning from the advertisement on this
toilet block can automatically compensate for the operation. We want to go in for
facility management services."
And finally, the best toilet story...a story of then and now!
The toilet complex is at Nizammudin basti, where about 25 per cent of the
residents do not have toilet facilities. Close to the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya,
the basti sees lakhs of pilgrims and visitors every year.
Yet, of the two municipal toilet complexes in the area, only one was in use. Even
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Listen
here totoilet
the the latest songs, only
infrastructure ondefunct
was JioSaavn.com
and damaged. Open defecation was
therefore common. A
Over six years ago, under a public private partnership initiative with the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi, the Aga Khan Development Network or AKDN began to
rebuild and upgrade the community toilets in the basti.
This Date
This is the larger of the two facilities which was re-launched a year ago. Clean,
NDTV
airy and well lit, there are cubicles for bathing and courtyards for washing
Read Next Story
clothes. Dustbins and steel pans make maintenance easy.
Shveta Mathur, Programme Officer of Aga Khan Development Network, said, "We
have done a single shaft which has individual stacks from all the toilet cubicles
so that if there is a problem with one cubicle, then the piping is individual and the
whole line doesn't get choked up. Many times we see that the quality of
construction and the quality of infrastructure that has been laid in at the first time
is also very inadequate and that leads to problems in maintainenece . The minute
you get in adequate light and ventilation, you eliminate the use of electricity
throughout the day, so that reduces costs.
A local self- help group, the Rehmat Nigraani Samooh, is managing the toilet
complexes.
There's staff for continuous cleaning, a manager by day and a security guard at
night. Two cubicles are open to users at night.
Announcements on the public address system remind users to be responsible, to

use the dustbins, the flush, and not to waste water.
We join the group members as they hold their monthly meeting. They have
received intensive training in how they could educate the people to use the
facility, as well as in banking and record keeping.
Globally community toilets are prone to vandalism. But regular supervision by the
group members has gone a long way in reducing this.
"Some people have very bad habits. They get drunk and frequently get into fights.
Outsiders would have found it difficult to handle them. Since we belong to the
community we are able to deal with them," said Azhar, a member of the Rehmat
Nigraani Samooh.
Even the problems of littering is under check
According to Shveta," If the toilets are well maintained and a place is kept clean
from the very beginning, the tendency or human nature would be to maintain it
that way."
7
Comments
There is a user fee: residents can get a family pass of ₹ 120 for five members for
a month, while visitors have to pay per use. The income generated meets 60 per
cent of the cost of management The rest is subsidized by the AKDN
cent of the cost of management. The rest is subsidized by the AKDN.
The model could be adapted to other parts of the city by applying economies of A
scale. It could make the dream of an open defecation free capital that much
closer to being realised.
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9/5/23, 11:30 AM India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital

News india-news India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital A

This Article is From Nov 08, 2014

India Matters: Toilet Stories From the Capital

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But let's begin at the beginning.

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Only 45 per cent of Delhi has sewage connection.

It is difficult but we have to manage."

"What is the solution? If I install a number of dustbins personally, the next

At another toilet complex in Kalyanpuri, sanitation workers give us a glimpse of

Listen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com

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There is an unmistakable sense of deja vu as we visit a community toilet complex

We are accompanied by Anita Bhargava, who started a citizen's initiative to make

Read Next Story

Manish Gupta, Commissioner of East Delhi and South Delhi Municipal

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