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Pay penalty for peeing in public
But, the GHMC is yet to meet the Swachh Bharat norms to provide one public toilet for every 25 women and 50 men. When asked about it, the officials said the GHMC was taking measures to provide toilets. They argued that unless they started taking action against open urination it would not be possible to enforce discipline.
Hyderabad: The GHMC, which had failed to provide an adequate number of public toilets in the city, has started penalising those found relieving themselves in the open places.The GHMC is resorting to strong-arm tactics in order to meet the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan norms and the see that the city gets high rating in the online opinion poll launched by the Centre.
But, the GHMC is yet to meet the Swachh Bharat norms to provide one public toilet for every 25 women and 50 men. When asked about it, the officials said the GHMC was taking measures to provide toilets. They argued that unless they started taking action against open urination it would not be possible to enforce discipline.
According to GHMC officials, the civic body had been maintaining 129 public toilets under BOT process. About 107 (50 bio-toilets) public toilets have been provided by the engineering wing and 50 toilets by the Sulabh International. Besides them, the GHMC during April 2015 had planned to install 200 modern pre-fabricated toilets in several locations across the city as a part of Swachh Bharat Mission.
The GHMC, however, installed only 109 swachh toilets. They too have remained dysfunctional as the GHMC is yet to hand them over to one or the other private agencies for operation and maintenance. Of them, about 90 per cent were not put use till date. The unit cost of each modern pre-fabricated swachh toilet is about Rs 5 lakh. Ironically the city has less than 500 public toilets.
A senior GHMC official told The Hans India that despite existing toilets, the GHMC has appealed to the citizens to use toilets in 550 petrol bunks across the city. He said the GHMC had recently instructed all petrol bunk owners to provide toilet facilities for both men and women separately. But a reality check indicated that most petrol bunks in the city did not have toilets.
In the meantime, the GHMC has taken up campaign and special drive against open urination on Sunday. The officials felicitated a few people found answering the call of nature and they imposed fine on them in areas including Abids, Koti and Chaderghat. According to GHMC officials, the GHMC imposed a fine ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 on violators.
Sumith Khandelwal, 35 year old private employees working for a MNC, said even though GHMC initiative was appreciable, they were not implemented due to the apathy of the officials on the ground. "How can the corporation stop public urination and impose fines on citizens when it has failed to provide basic facilities like public toilet," he asked. He said the petrol bunk owners in several areas have not been allowing citizens to use the public toilets and some other they were maintained very badly. "There not a single public toilet from Uppal junction to Secunderabad. Even though there petrol bunks are situated in-between a few of them have toilet facilities," Praveen Suri, a resident of Tarnaka.
