Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) once again failed to keep its promise as the corporation failed to install and open over 3000 new public toilets before Independence Day (August 15). Ahead of August 15, the civic boddy had installed 1,536 new modern washrooms across the city, which however are yet to become operational.
A majority of public toilets are still either locked or just dumped on the pavements with no sewage connections. Several people were seen urinating around the locked toilets, beating the whole point of installing the toilets. The situation is becoming pretty bad outside the toilets in areas like King Koti, Himayatnagar, Secunderabad, Jubilee Bus Station, and Begumpet flyover. Given the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, it is also a matter of pubic hygiene.
“I travelled from Raj Bhavan to Secunderabad and saw more than 12 washrooms but not even one of them was operational. They were all locked and people were urinating near it,” says Mohammed Minhaj, a resident of Hyderabad.
The public toilets have been built by multiple agencies under various business models like Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and on the Public-Private-Partnership model (PPP) etc. The maintenance of these toilets is with the agency, according to officials from the civic body. A GHMC official who did not want to be quoted, stated that the corporation is looking for more agencies for the concrete maintenance of these toilets.
