From today, women and kids can use loos at all south Delhi hotels
Women and children will no longer have to go looking for public washrooms to relieve themselves after a long day of shopping at south Delhi markets. Starting Monday, they could just walk to a nearby restaurant for an access to any posh toilet, completely free of cost.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) commissioner Puneet Kumar Goel said that hotels, restaurants and eateries in the area will open their toilets to public use from May 1. However, men are kept of out of the scheme due to privacy issues cited by hotel associations.
The SDMC claims that the move will make an additional 3,500 toilets accessible for women and children. People in this category could use washare rooms even in five-star hotels of South Delhi. Goel said the decision was taken on a suggestion from L-G Anil Baijal.
“We want the hotels and restaurants to take this directive in the right spirit. The facility will be reviewed on the basis of feedback provided by the catering establishments,” said SDMC additional commissioner (health) Meeta Singh.
The three municipal corporations run 1,134 public toilets and 2,400 urinals across the capital. Only 218 of these public toilets available to women.
However, the bigger problem is that lack of maintenance and hygiene deters most people from these toilets. Several people complain that in most public toilets, taps and seats are either stolen or broken, besides them being very dirty.
As a result, most women choose not to use toilet for a long hours, inviting several diseases including kidney problems.
Earlier, experiments with waterless urinals had flopped because of poor implementation.
Divya Verma , a resident of Sarita Vihar said, “The corporation has to infringe into the private establishments because they have failed to provide good public toilets. May be the rich people would be able to use these toilets now, but do you think a poor woman would dare to enter these restaurants?”