On PMC terrain, one urinal for 9,000 citizens

[karira]

On PMC terrain, one urinal for 9,000 citizens

Pune, December 11 For a city witnessing a realty boom in all corners, shockingly, the basic amenities like public urinals and toilets are woefully inadequate. Health norms say there should be at least one public urinal per hundred people. In reality the number is one public urinal for every 9,000 people. What is even more shocking is that there is absolutely no public urinal for women and disabled people in the city.

These facts came to light in response to a Right to Information Act (RTI) application filed by activist Vijay Kumbhar. “Despite the health norms being in place, PMC is clearly apathetic towards providing basic health amenities like public urinals. The norms say that there should be one public urinal every 100 people. However, there are only 352 urinals in Pune, which has crossed a population of 30 lakh.”

He said the situation was still worse as there were no public urinals for women and the disabled. Kumbhar said on several major roads in the city, no public urinals could be found at long stretches. “On many major roads in the city, like Sinhgad Road and Bajirao Road, only one urinal could be found for kilometers. For example, no urinal exists between the stretch of Wakdewadi and Deccan Gymkhana bus stand. The same is true in case of University chowk to Aundh or Baner.”

In Pune, there are 772 pay-and-use public toilets with 11,319 seats, out of which, 5,731 are for men and 5,588 for women. “Most of these pay-and-use are for slum-dwellers and not on the public roads for general public. So in this case, if someone relieves himself in open space, PMC’s nuisance detection squad might fine that person for dirtying the city. When there is lack of public sanitation facilities, the civic administration should not be charging fine from poor people.” Kumbhar said that he would soon be serving a notice to the PMC in this regard.


On PMC terrain, one urinal for 9,000 citizens