Chennai, Oct 29(BPNS)
Even as Chennai is one of the oldest metropolitan cities in the country, the city is still lacking public toilets. To overcome this issue, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is to open public toilets at 372 locations in public, and private partnerships.
The maintenance of these toilets would be conducted by contractors who would be selected through tendering process. The contract is for eight years. There were several complaints against the maintenance of public toilets in the city as also destruction of many toilets by anti-social elements.
The GCC secretary Gagan Singh Bedi in a statement said that the performance of the contractors who will maintain these toilets will be properly monitored by a third-party evaluator. There are, according to authorities 26 indicators that will be considered while clearing the payment of the contractors and if they fall short in any of these indicators, the payment will be withheld.
The performance indicators, according to the GCC include clean premises, availability of mirrors, soaps, dispensers, sanitary napkins and other indicators.
The pilot project will commence soon with toilets coming up at Royapuram and Tiruvika Nagar zones and 11 toilets will be set up in Marina beach.
C. Rajeev of the Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a think tank and social organization based in Chennai while speaking to BPNS said, “ It is a welcome move. Every society should have good, clean toilets where people can use properly and hope these toilets are properly maintained so that people feel like going there.”
With the Greater Chennai Corporation taking initiative for installing new public toilets in the city, it will be a positive signal for public hygiene in the city.
