Biggest Swachh drive to see 10K toilets by Oct. 2 in Hyd
8,100 toilets to be free; GHMC aims to give 1 toilet per 1K persons
The GHMC has set a target to have 10,000 public toilets in the city by October 2. It has already constructed about 7,800 till date. Of these, citizens can use 8,100 toilets for free.
The corporation has also invited expression of interest (EoI) for maintenance of the toilets and preference will be given to safai karamcharis. About 1,900 new toilets have been set up on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model while the remaining will be taken up on cluster maintenance basis.
The GHMC indents to ensure at least one toilet seat per 1,000 persons in urban areas. Accordingly, municipal administration and urban development ( MA&UD) minister K.T. Rama Rao instructed officials to prepare proposals and take up the construction of public toilets on priority.
At that point, the GHMC had 3,000 public toilets. The race is on to complete the rest.
The design and award of construction works were finalised by a committee of engineers following the approval of GHMC commissioner D.S. Lokesh Kumar. The cost of each design varies from `65,000 to `1.5 lakh. Each toilet is equipped with ventilation, water supply and electrical connection.
In important commercial areas, they were taken up on BOT basis on self-sustainable public private partnership mode on the lines of the Loo Café.
A top official in the corporation said five to 10 toilets wold form a cluster. The private agency which bags the project to maintain cluster toilets would act as per the standard operating procedure prescribed by the corporation. The agency should clean the toilets at least six times a day. Based on the result, the toilet will expand the project to the remaining clusters.
The corporation has earmarked `22 crore as the estimated cost for annual maintenance.
“It is the largest drive to build public toilets anywhere in the country. Hyderabad will be, by far, the only city with more than 10,000 public toilets,” the official.
He said the corporation will construct another 10,000 toilets during the next financial year and zonal commissioners were searching for sites to install them. The official only matter of concern was that the public toilets will be trespassed into city footpaths since most of them will construct an extension of bus shelters.