Delhi HC for mobile app to locate public toilets

New Delhi: Delhiiites can soon hope to take the help of an application on their smartphones to locate a washroom in the city to attend an urgent call of nature. 

The Delhi high court, which found it difficult to ascertain the location of public toilets in the city on perusing the response of civic bodies, directed the municipal bodies to carry out mapping and geo-tagging of public toilets to make them more accessible for citizens.

If the direction is implemented in letter and spirit, soon Delhiiites can use their smart phones to locate public toilets as the information would be digitised and made available on online maps or mobile applications.

A bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C. Hari Shankar perused the affidavits of tri-furcated MCD and could not ascertain where such washrooms exist. “It is, therefore, directed as follows. Let the civic bodies place before us a mapping of the toilets.”

“All agencies shall explore and examine the possibility as well as the feasibility of mapping the locations of these public toilets by way of geo-tagging and making the same available, by an appropriate application, to all mobile users or otherwise on the Internet to facilitate accessibility of all information regarding location of public toilets," it said. It said a report on the steps taken in this aspect be filed before it by October 30, the next date of hearing.

The court said the NDMC will be the nodal agency of exploring the possibility of geo-tagging.

It said all other agencies shall furnish the requisite information regarding location of their public toilets to the NDMC Commissioner or Delhi Environment Mana-gement Services director.  The bench also directed the civic bodies take steps to ensure that adequate number of public toilets are available in crowded places.