ODF status is still a far cry in TN

Even as India’s Swachh Bharat Mission has seen the burgeoning of toilets in public spaces and in rural homes, Tamil Nadu is yet to be declared ODF by an independent third party, according to the latest annual report (2018-19) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The existence of toilets in public spaces does not necessarily translate into toilet usage. Sustained maintenance of public toilets including uninterrupted water supply, electricity and a sense of hygiene keeps the public toilets functional and encourages people to use them.

The 51st Standing Committee Report on Rural Development (2017-18) had recommended removal of a number of defunct toilets from the data stating that it “does not reveal a real picture of ODF until and unless the coverage data and usage data in regard to the functional toilets are same.”

“Sustained regulation, monitoring and maintenance of public toilets should be done to prevent open defecation. Public toilets are sometimes like storerooms. There has been discrepancies between number of toilets reported and ground realities,” says Girija K Bharat, founder-director of Mu Gamma Consultants and a senior consultant with the World Bank, USAID and TERI. “Extreme vigilance must also be taken with regard to the quality of the toilets being constructed. People constructing public toilets lack proper training. Badly constructed septic tanks can contaminate land and water,” she says.

Using unhygienic public toilets can cause urinary tract infections and unsanitary toilet practices leads to feco-oral infections. Safety and privacy are major concerns for women when the toilets are not well-lit or don’t have secure access. Toilets in public spaces are locked at night which deters people from using them and leads to open defecation. Public toilets in many places also lack proper ventilation and air fresheners are needed to keep them odour free.

Google Maps has rolled out features for users to easily find public toilets, but not all of them can be found through the platform yet. Finding toilets should also be made easier for people who do not own a smartphone or are not tech savvy enough.

The existing number of toilets in public spaces are also not enough to cater to our growing population numbers, despite increase in toilet construction under the Swachh Bharath Mission. According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, around 5,82,573 public and community toilets have been constructed all over India.

The Standing Committee noted the following about the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen’, which focusses on providing sanitation to villages and rural areas. It said that ‘the sanitation coverage figures seemed to be more on "Paper" but the actual progress at the ground level is very lethargic’. It also noted that due to filing of wrong information regarding attaining of ODF or due to non-sustainability of toilets, villages reverted to open defecation, while on data they remained ODF. The Committee recommended that information on ODF-declared villages must be collected accurately on continuous basis either through institutional mechanism or through re survey.

Public toilets should be equipped with sanitary napkin vending machines and incinerators in place to address the menstrual hygiene requirements of women. Due to lack of proper sanitary napkin incinerators in all public toilets, they are often dumped on floors if there is no dustbin available, posing health risks to both toilet users and cleaners or they are flushed down the toilet which clogs the pipes. All public toilets should also be friendly to differently abled people and must be equipped with ramps enabling wheelchair access, wide doors and grab bars inside toilets for easy usability. There is also a lack of children-friendly public toilets which are designed especially for use by small children, changing tables for babies and diaper disposal systems.

Designing a public toilet is itself a challenging task as there are various aspects to consider. Says Girija, “During water scarce months, cleaning and using of toilets becomes an issue due to lack of continuous water supply and the public toilets remain unused. Dry toilets which do not use water for flushes and remain odourless could be the way forward to tackle this challenge and conserve water, but this technology is still in its infancy in India.”

A ‘cultural appropriateness study’ was done by the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad in Tamil Nadu, to analyse the cultural issues surrounding public toilets, before designing the ‘Namma Toilets’.

One innovative design is that of the ‘e-toilet’, a self-cleaning toilet that gets automatically flushed before and after use and its floors automatically washed after being used 10 times. These toilets also conserve water by controlling the quantity of flush water depending on the duration of usage.

The cost of these toilets can range from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh depending on the type of toilet configuration and the monthly maintenance cost of a single toilet unit is around Rs 5,000. E-Toilets under the Chennai Corporation are free to use but 16 of them, which are in the Chennai Airport, are coin operated pay per use ones. Chennai Corporation has 223 e-toilets and 35 of them are SHE toilets which are designed for women with features for menstrual hygiene management. “One of the major challenges we face is the misuse of these toilets where a user leaves the toilet very dirty and unusable for the next user. Our maintenance contract with the Chennai Corporation expired last year and is yet to be renewed, so more than half of the e-toilets in Chennai are not functional,” says an official at Eram Scientific Solutions, makers of the e-toilets.

Vandalism of public toilets is also a concern and toilet designers should design toilets to be vandalism-proof by using stainless steel designs, safety grills and secure toilet entrances. “Behavioural changes and awareness in people regarding the proper use of public toilets is also necessary to maintain them in good condition,” says Girija. Location specific design challenges also must be considered.