Poor state of urinals at Metro stations

Hyderabad: The waterless urinals at metro stations are in a bad shape due to lack of proper maintenance. The Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) has constructed 45 waterless urinals at some of the Metro stations across the city and separate restrooms for commuters inside all the metro stations which are maintained by Larson &Toubro Ltd.

These waterless urinals constructed at the street level of at Metro stations are maintained by HMRL. Senior officials say that people are to blame as they spit gutka and chewing gums in them. In some of the urinals, the flush is not a working condition, which leads to foul smell. These urinals have not been cleaned up regularly.

There are two toilet blocks and each toilet block consist of three urinals and the total cost of setting up these three urinals was Rs 3 lakh. These urinals are expected to save around 1.5 lakh liters of water annually.

Traditional urinal system with automated flushing uses 400 to 500 ml of water per flush. The waterless urinals system can save 96 per cent of the water, say Metro officials.

Lakhs of people visit the Ameerpet metro station every day to change trains to reach Hi-Tec City from Nagole and Miyapur from Nagole. There are only two rest rooms for men and women on both sides of the metro stations and they can accommodate only 20 to 30 persons at a time.

Speaking to The Hans India here on Sunday, an official said, "We have noticed that street-level urinals are being misused by the public and very soon, we will start cleaning these urinals regularly. Metro regular commuter Santosh Kumar and Vinay Bhaskar said the toilets in crowded stations like Ameerpet, Miyapur, Nagole, LB Nagar stations are not maintained properly."