Only one in three toilets seats in city are for women, claims ngo’s report

Mumbai: While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is claiming to strive hard to make the city open defecation free (ODF) by constructing more toilets, its efforts are not fair to women, says the report from Praja Foundation.

Under the Swacch Bharat Mission, Mumbai has been declared ODF city. However, as per the data obtained by Praja Foundation on public toilets (pay and use), there is a glaring disparity of 64 per cent, when it comes to comparing the number of male and female toilet seats in public toilets.

Praja’s report analysed the number of toilet seats available in public toilets in the city. The analysis indicated that in Mumbai, for every three toilet seats, two are for men. C ward has the largest disparity with 85 per cent, while R/N (Dahisar) has the lowest disparity of 50 per cent. Three wards — E, R/South and N — do not have sanitation facilities for differently abled people.

“It seems that civic body is giving more priority to men over women. C ward (Marine Drive, historically has a large floating population, but it has the largest disparity in toilets. These are shocking statistics since it is women who are in dire need of support in terms of sanitation infrastructure. Dismal numbers such as these in a mega city like Mumbai are disheartening and the BMC should make a concerted effort to correct this disparity,” said Milind Mhaske, project director at Praja Foundation.