With a lofty target to build 5,000 household toilets in Mumbai by March next year, under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has written to the centre to allow for toilets in chawls, which do not come under household toilets, to be identified as household toilets.
Even though these toilets are not located inside the house, the civic body believes they can qualify for household toilets as they are still within the building, sometimes two on each floor, on either end of the common corridor in Mumbai’s chawl structures.
Meanwhile, it has also asked the centre to permit community toilets in slums and semi-slums to be counted as access to toilets, as it is impossible to construct one toilet per home in these shanties.
Commenting on this, a senior civic official said, “There is a severe space crunch in Mumbai’s houses, and there is no space in several of them for constructing toilets within the house. By adding the common toilets to this category, we will be able to meet the SBA target in time, and many individuals will come under the access to toilet criteria.”
Even though the civic body’s requests demands relaxation of SBA rules of one toilet in each household, it will help the city deal with its own target of providing all citizens with an access to one toilet seat by end of the year. According to the solid waste management rules, 30 people should have access to at least one toilet seat, even though right now about 66 people in Mumbai access one toilet seat.
The official futher said, “Once we have established how many number of toilets are there in each chawl like building, we will be able to figure how many people have access to toilets. Then we will construct the additional number of toilet seats under the community toilet category.
The BMC has presently undertaken a survey to find out how many such toilets are there in chawls in the city. These results will help the civic body peg the final number of toilets to be constructed this year.
