Public toilets being set up in 366 places in Chennai: Mayor

CHENNAI: Public toilets are being set up in 366 places at a cost of Rs 36 crore in the city, which will be disabled friendly with ramp facilities, Chennai mayor R Priya said on Saturday.

The mayor who inspected an upcoming facility at Madhavaram bus terminal urged the officials to speed up the construction works. Also, to differentiate, the local body had decided to use different colour for different gender, the mayor said.

"During the legislative assembly, municipal administration, and water supply minister, KN Nehru, stated that public toilets should be accessible to people and disabled persons. Based on announcement the Tamil Nadu government allocated Rs 36 crore under the Swachh India scheme to reconstruct dilapidated and unusable toilets at 366 places in the city," the mayor said.

The city has 7,590 toilets with seats at 943 places and will continue to be free for public use.

Under this project, 860 toilets with seats and 620 seats with urinals are to be constructed in the 366 mentioned places and most of them will come up at high density areas.

Approvals have been sought for these projects and work orders have been issued to start work at 334 locations under the first phase. “At present, all the public toilets that are being set up are the same except the colour, the design will be same for all the lavatories, ” added the mayor.

The new facility at Madhavaram bus stand is constructed under the Swachh India project at an estimate of Rs 18 lakh. Corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi and other senior officials accompanied the mayor during the inspection.