“I drink very little water to avoid using the toilet. There are cleaner ones but they are located at a distance and it is not possible to walk so far,” says a woman clothes seller who runs a small stall on Fergusson College Road.
At Fergusson College Road
A crowded thoroughfare in Pune, Fergusson College Road is known for its lively mix of dainty shops jostling for space with popular eateries and is a vibrant hang-out for college students. The stinking public e-toilet by the roadside, which is both coin-operated and freely accessible manually, has not only broken down doors but is also filthy as local vendors dump used plastic bottles in it. Sensors that initiate automatic functions like pre-flush and post-flush, platform cleaning, indication lights that show whether a facility is occupied or not stopped working long ago. But this toilet is the only option for many women vendors on FC Road. The world may have just celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, but the women here still struggle to find a clean public toilet while out and about.
An e-Toilet on Fergusson College Road, which visitors have complained is unkempt and dirty. (Express Photo by Vaishnavi Pawar)
A school and a bus stand
At a civic school under the Vadgaonsheri ward office nearly 12 km away, a Class 9 student tries to use the school’s toilet as sparingly as possible. A resident of the slum in the vicinity, she says she needs to use the toilet at least once during her school hours, from 11 am to 4 pm. The toilets at this school by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have been painted recently but the situation inside is different. The bin inside the girls’ toilet, which is full of waste and sanitary pads, usually gets emptied after a gap of three-four days. The school authorities admit they have to keep calling the local sanitation officials to ensure the toilets are cleaned at least once in three days.
A manpower shortage has taken a toll on the cleanliness of school toilets. Such is the plight at some schools under the Vadgaonsheri ward office that authorities said their very first job before taking attendance was to call sanitation workers to clean the toilets.
At the state transport bus stand in the heavily crowded Swargate area, there are four paid public toilets. The caretaker claims they are cleaned thrice a day. Some women using these toilets say they are better than some public toilets but the floors are not quite clean. There is a PMC sanitary napkin tag displayed on the wall but no pad vending machine.
Challenges for civic body
On its website, Pune’s civic administration admits that maintaining public toilets and providing good sanitation services have been a challenge. Multiple programmes have been adopted over the years to improve sanitation conditions, with efforts by the solid waste management department to provide the urban poor access to public and community toilets. The PMC has even partnered with corporate houses, including the Serum Institute of India, which launched the Adar Poonawalla City Cleanliness Movement. However, efforts to invite tenders and appoint agencies to take up maintenance work of community toilets is more often than not delayed.
Tendering process
Stating that the tendering process takes time, Asha Raut, deputy municipal commissioner of the PMC’s solid waste management department, told The Indian Express that the civic body had ensured the maintenance targets were met. There are 1, 288 functional toilet blocks, which include 292 public toilets, 822 community toilets and 174 urinals across the city’s 15 ward offices. Agencies have also been appointed for mechanised cleaning of the toilets.
Raut said high-pressure water jet machines were required for cleaning public toilets. Since one jet machine can clean 150 toilet seats twice a day, 65 machines would be required for 9,743 toilet seats across 871 blocks. The PMC’s motor vehicles department provides 41 small jet machines for the purpose. Moreover, 417 toilet blocks have caretakers, so high-pressure water jet machines are not required for cleaning them. The private agency appointed via a tendering process is responsible for cleaning toilets and ensuring water supply, apart from regularly checking whether the doors and locks in these toilet complexes are functional. Raut said the tender process for e-toilets would be completed within a month and that zone-level appointments for mechanical cleaning of public toilets had also been taken up.
The PMC opened 11 pay-to-use e-toilets in 2018. Users need to insert a coin of Rs 1, Rs 2, Rs 5 or Rs 10 to unlock the door and use the toilet. All of these are now dysfunctional. “The contract with the firm that was operating the e-toilets has ended. We are looking for a new firm now,” said an official with the solid waste management department.
‘Ti’ toilets, which are mobile lavatories exclusively meant for women, seem to be comparatively successful with all five in working condition. As they are housed in old buses of the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited, they can be moved around depending on the public response and need. These were launched in 2016 by the PMC in collaboration with the Pune Smart City Corporation and Saraplast.
“Currently, they are providing service at five locations, namely J M Road (near Sambhaji Garden), Shaniwar Wada, Pune District Court, Aundh and Wanawadi. The contract with the private firm is being renewed with a proposal for three new locations, namely Lohegaon, Bopodi and Vishranwadi,” said an official with the solid waste management department.
The women’s e-toilet on Fergusson College Road. Despite it being covered in a heap of garbage dump, women in need continue to use it. (Express Photo by Vaishnavi Pawar)
‘Aspirational toilets’
In the neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune’s industrial and automotive hub, there are 872 blocks with 4,831 toilet seats across eight administrative zones. According to the municipal corporation’s deputy municipal commissioner (health), Ajay Charthankar, the administration has taken very seriously the need to build “aspirational toilets” as part of Swachh Bharat Mission phase-II.
“Aspirational toilets” are toilets with all necessities such as good supply of water and a disposal system for sanitary waste, are hygienic and have proper signboards, ventilation and lighting. The PMC has 15 “aspirational toilets”. At least 120 “aspirational toilets” have been developed in the corporation area, he added.
Charthankar said the concept initially was to build toilets to discourage open defecation but as part of Swachh Bharat Mission phase II, the focus is now on ensuring sustainable “aspirational toilets”.
Health and hygiene across civic schools
Shantisagar Kamble, of the Spherule Foundation, says the NGO often conducts programmes to sensitise young girls and boys to health and hygiene in civic schools. “Some girls at 2-3 civic body-run schools have complained that the toilets are filthy and not cleaned for several days in a row,” Kamble said.
However, there has been a citywide improvement in the health and sanitation status over the past decade, as per a survey by Shelter Associates, a civil society organisation that works to improve sanitation services in slum communities by facilitating the construction of individual toilets for slum families. “Our ‘One Home, One Toilet’ initiative has proved to be a game changer,” said Pratima Joshi, founder and executive director of Shelter Associates.
“In Pune city, individual toilets facilitation in slums has increased from 30 to 60 per cent. In Pimpri-Chinchwad, it has increased from 11 per cent to 57 per cent,” Joshi said.
The NGO said its data indicated an improvement in the sanitation status of women in slums owing to a massive jump in the number of individual toilets. Girls and adolescents now feel secure using a home toilet as they do not have to go to community toilets at odd hours, Joshi said.
