Think twice before peeing in public!

Tirupati: In a brave step, the Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) taken up imposing penalty on public urination to deter the people from piddling in public places.

The officers, who are acting as Corporation’s special officers and the ward (division) officers, were empowered to impose the fine, were directed to go round daily in the busy streets and arterial roads to check public urination.

Interestingly, there is not even a single woman among the fined indicating that they are maintaining dignity and are more conscious about avoiding this habit of public urination which the men folk are still unable to discard.

The corporation started the collection penalty of Rs 100 for public urination from December 10 and till 15th as many as 215, who were found urinating in public were fined by the officials to deter them from repeating such unhealthy practice.

Dr C Subba Rao, one of the Corporation’s ten special officers, felt that in a city like Tirupati where public urination is still prevalent, the task of preventing it through penalty became a ticklish job to the officials. “Daily, I along with concerned ward officials fining four or five during our inspections. Sadly, even decent looking and educated too found to resorting to urination in public.

They immediately responding by assuring us not to repeat it again. The problem is with very poor, migrant labourers and destitute, who are not in a position to pay even the penalty of Rs 100. In such cases, we are counselling them to use the public toilets available at every 500 metres in the main city and leaving them after cautioning them not to repeat it,” he said.

Corporation’s tough stand against public urination got overall appreciation but some opposing the civic body taking such deterrent step on the ground that the city is still not in a position to adopt such a stringent measure like fining public.

They argue that though the Corporation in the past few years able to construct public toilets in a big way in the city, their maintenance particularly in busy areas is far from satisfactory was the main reason deterring the public from using them.

This apart, due to lack of sign boards the public or the outsiders are often in a fix unable find where the toilets are located. Lastly, in a famous pilgrim city like Tirupati having more beggars, destitute and shelter less people like migrant labourers such stringent measures is not desirable on humanitarian grounds.

However, MCT Commissioner V Vijay Rama Raju said that the civic body has no option but to resort to impose penalty against public urination as it turned into a big menace in the city. It is in the larger interests of the denizens as well as pilgrims arriving daily in large numbers to the city from various places.

The fining also digital mode, he said adding that the fined will get a message in receipt of the collection of penalty of Rs 100, he added. On its part, he said the corporation is taking up all steps to expand the toilet facility and ensure clean to make it more effective.

Besides, based on the feedback from the field-level officials, signage boards will be put up at every 50 metres, to indicate the public the distance in which the toilet is located. It was found that lack of sign boards on the existence of toilets and its distance sometime abetting piddling.

Besides, sign boards in other languages like Tamil will also be put up in the areas like bus stand, railway station, temples and TTD choultries in the city where the pilgrim movement is heavy to check public urination.