he Coimbatore Corporation has proposed to construct over 50 community toilets across the city. The funds will come from the Central Government under the Swachh Bharat scheme. While the idea is simple enough – to provide toilets to those who did not have access to one, its execution is turning out to be not-so-simple.
These toilets are for those from the low income groups who live in small dwellings usually put up along water bodies or on encroached government land. Finding land is going to be difficult because the Coimbatore Corporation cannot construct toilets along water bodies or on government land.
Councillor M. Rajendran of Ward 9 says that the civic body should overcome the objections, if any, in constructing toilets for people in urban slums because it has in any case provided roads, street lights and drinking water facility. Otherwise the residents will defecate in the open, he adds, citing the plight of residents of Gandhi Nagar and Prabhu Nagar in his ward in Kavundampalayam. S. Selvakumar, a member of the committee formed to ensure eradication of manual scavenging, says that there is a problem of constructing toilets in government (poromboke) land but the Corporation should come up with a solution to it. Deputy Mayor Leelavathi Unni offers a solution to the civic body. She says it can provide mobile toilets attached to temporary tanks. This will help eliminate the need for permanent structures for toilets and thereby the Revenue Department’s permission.
The other problem, says South Zone Chairperson M. Perumalsamy, is that even if the Corporation finds land for a toilet complex, the residents in the neighbourhood will object to it on grounds of hygiene. The Corporation is yet to decide on its course of action and the newly formed City Sanitation Task Force will look into this.
