Mumbai: What happened to cleaning public toilets five times a day?

People wait in a queue at a public toilet near Vile Parle station. File pic

Three weeks on, public and community toilets in the city are yet to get scrubbed five times a day. The BMC made an announcement to this effect three weeks ago, but is yet to issue instructions to toilet operators. In fact, the authority is yet to come up with a concrete plan and financial support to make the plan feasible. The operators, however, are concerned about the increase in cost if the scheme is implemented.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and MHADA have spent substantial amounts of money to construct and repair the toilets, but maintenance of the same has been a long-standing issue. The civic body has started the process to take over the toilets under MHADA jurisdiction and appoint contractors to maintain the same. BMC commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had, during the inauguration of beautification works in the city on December 10, announced that public toilets would be cleaned up five times a day.

An official from the Solid Waste Management Department said, "Even during the pandemic, the toilets were cleaned five times a day. The BMC provided assistance in terms of providing sanitary products." He, however, added that there was no proposal to provide financial assistance or increase cost of services yet.

Chanda Jadhav, deputy municipal commissioner, did not respond to calls and messages.

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A solid waste management official from a ward in south Mumbai said, "We received a written instruction on Friday about it. We are in the process of issuing notices to all community and pay-and-use toilets in the ward."

Nawab Khan, who runs toilets in Cheetah Camp through community-based organisation (CBO), said, "We haven't received any instruction about cleaning toilets five times a day. We used to do that during COVID, but back then we had help from NGOs. Currently, we clean the toilets twice a day and pay the cleaners Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000 each month. If we increase the frequency, the cost will be doubled."

Another CBO operator from Vikhroli, Satish Bhosale, said, "Cleaning five times a day is a good idea but it is not practical, at least for community toilets. The extra cost will ultimately be borne by the slum residents who use the toilets. During the pandemic, we had to bear the cost of cleaning five times without any assistance from the BMC."

"When the toilets were maintained by the BMC contractor, they hardly cleaned and people kept complaining. Now the civic body has come up with this plan without any ground study. We are paying electricity and water bills at commercial rates and are hardly able to pay the salary to clean it twice a day. The people here are so poor that they would opt for less sanitation over paying more," said Ayesha Sayyed, who operates a toilet in Vashi Naka, Chembur.

10 Dec
Day when the announcement was made