Toilet woes plague women shoppers
CHANDNI CHOWK Finding a ‘swachh’, usable restroom in one of Delhi’s biggest markets is a challenge for women
NEWDELHI: As India celebrates the completion of three years under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, in the heart of its capital, visitors at the Chandni Chowk market, especially women, are still left floundering for a “Swachh” public restroom.
Chandni Chowk market, which caters heavily to a female customer base, is the go-to destination for wedding shoppers and jewellery buyers.
According to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), in August 2017, the combined average daily footfall at the Chandni Chowk, Chawri Bazar, Lal Quila and Jama Masjid metro stations exceeds 1,00,000. However, for these shoppers, especially women, a call from nature can prove to be the most unpleasant disruption to their day’s plans.
According to Sanjay Bhargava, the president of the Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, a traders’ association, the area has no facility for women that is clean or hygienic.
“I don’t use the public restrooms here. I hold it in as long as I can, or I go to the gurdwara. It is cleaner. You could catch all sorts of diseases if you to use these restrooms,” said Renu (who goes by her first name), who sells bags on the streets.
Though there are a handful public restrooms in the area, but the ones that HT visited were poorly maintained. One of the bigger ones in the area is located on HC Sen Marg, but the unbearable stench and vessels cut out of old oil containers provided for washing makes it next to impossible to use. A women’s toilet near Jama Masjid police station is essentially a single faeces-stained room with a hole in the floor — no commodes, no mugs or buckets.
The metro stations in the area, Chawri Bazaar, Lal Quila, and Jama Masjid also have restrooms, but only passengers would have access to these, as they are on the other side of the entry gates. At Chandni Chowk station, the guards said that people can use the Sulabh toilets without having to purchase a ticket, but many complain of unclean conditions here too.
“There are restrooms in the gurdwara that are clean, but you can’t go in all the time, can you? Even the ones in the metro stations are in poor condition,” said Neha (who goes by her first name), a shopper in the area.
Nitin Panigrahi, the deputy general manager (project and administration) of the Shahjahan Redevelopment Corporation (SRDC) which is the body working on the redevelopment of Chandni Chowk, said that they were aware of the issue, and they were looking into it as a part of their redevelopment plans. However, he noted that as the Public Works Department (PWD) is the executing agency for the project, he could not commit on a date by when these would be ready.
PWD principal secretary Ashwani Kumar, however, passed the buck to the MCDS citing the MCD Act, 1957, which puts the responsibility of building public toilets on municipal corporation.
Alka Lamba, the MLA from the constituency, also blamed the MCD. “The Delhi government has built toilets in the bylanes... The problem is that the MCD can provide space for encroachments, but not for fully functional toilets,” she said.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) said that in addition to the ones that HT visited, there is another toilet near Town Hall, and that it is in the process of building more.
“The major problem is maintenance as the footfall in the area is too high. There is also a scarcity of land. For men, it is easy to build urinals in confined areas; for women we need more land,” said an NDMC spokesperson.
While the different agencies are busy passing the buck and playing the blame-game, the common woman is left stranded.
“People who live in the area can head home... Men can go anywhere. It is the women who get stuck,” said Rama Devi, a fruit vendor at Dariba Kalan street. NEW DELHI: Nine-year-old Sohail Khan might have played a small role in the nukkad natak organised at Civic Centre on the occasion of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s third anniversary, but he understands the greater role he needs to be playing in making society cleaner.
A student of South Delhi Municipal Corporation School at RK Puram, and a resident of a jhuggi cluster near Mohammadpur, Sohail has been practising for the play the past month.
“Though I had a single dialogue (“Suno suno bhai suno suno, gandagi se aap ka rishta bahut purana hai...”) in the play, this helped me to understand the reasoning behind dumping garbage only in dustbins. If spread in the open, garbage can lead to diseases. So I have to ensure that my mother dumps waste only in MCD vehicles,” he said.
Since a majority of students come from working class neighbourhoods where sanitation is a big issue, the SDMC is using these children to convey the message of cleanliness in their households.
Besides the nukkad natak, the civic agency is also organising children’s’ i nteraction with NGOS and older students from neighbouring schools.
One such initiative is the cleanliness drive that has been organised along with the students of Delhi Public School, RK Puram, in seven SDMC schools, every week. “It is an effort to educate young children through older students because kids tend to learn such ideas better from their peers in comparison to teachers,” said Meeta Singh, additional commissioner, SDMC.
Now students from these seven schools will go to other SDMC schools to spread the message further.