Dignity continues to elude the urban poor. A survey by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has found that more than 37,000 families living in slums in the city do not have their own toilet. And, though there are around 500 ‘Nirmala Shaulachalyas’ owned by BBMP, most of them come within the commercial or central areas in the city.
Out of the 37,000, almost 17,000 families are from legal/notified slums, while the remaining are from illegal slums/ encroached areas. Yelahanka zone has the highest number of families without a toilet at their disposal, while Bommanahalli has the least.
“We conducted the survey in two batches, once in October and again in February. The first was to take stock and see where there was a deficiency. The second was according to instructions from the Swachh Bharat Mission,” said Subodh Yadav, BBMP Special Commissioner, Solid Waste Management. He said the objective of the Swachh Bharat Mission was to stop open defecation and to do so, building more toilets was key.
“The outskirts of the city are home to Bengaluru’s migratory population. It is mostly from this sector that we see open defection. We want to provide community toilets at least to minimise this,” he said. He explained that the survey was taken up at the ward level first and later, the numbers were collated centrally.
Under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Bengaluru is all set to get public toilets in 250 places, 80 e-toilets and 60 community toilets.
Kathyayini Chamaraj from the Citizens’ Voluntary Initiative for the City said, “When monsoon sets in, open defecation will lead to a sewage problem. The solution is to construct community toilets in slums, turn the human waste into methane gas, which in turn can be used to supply power to the slum kitchens or water pumps. People will cooperate if solutions like this are provided.”
She added that if open defecation cannot be erased, an alternative would be to construct sumps so that the waste can be turned into compost.
SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS
37,183 families in slums in Bengaluru do not have own toilet
17,435 live in legal/notified slums
19,748 live in temporary shacks/illegal slums
14,498 families are from Yelahanka zone
Bommanahalli zone has the most toilets, with only 229 families without their own toilet
