Taking a step towards making India cleaner, Minister of Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday launched a Google Map toilet locator to help people find public restrooms.
Google Maps will provide information on thousands of public toilets in Delhi National Capital Region and in Madhya Pradesh. Toilets can be located not just through the app on mobile phones (Android and iOS), but on desktop computers as well.
At the launch, Mr. Naidu that 504 cities and towns, which also include cities with population over four million, have achieved the status of being free of open defecation. A total of 739 cities and towns have committed themselves to achieve the target by March.
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Mr. Naidu said that Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim have declared all cities and towns Open Defecation Free (ODF) and Kerala is set to become ODF by March 2018.
Regular updates
Working in tandem with the Urban Development Ministry, Google provides the listings of public toilets in Delhi NCR, including Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Noida and Faridabad, and Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Information on the address and opening hours of 4,000 public toilets will be regularly updated.
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Sanket Gupta, product manager, Google Maps, in a statement said, “When you search for ‘public toilet’ on Google Maps in an area where the service is available, you’ll see a list of restrooms near you, including the respective address and opening hours. For instance, if you’re travelling on the National Highway 8 in Gurugram, locating a public toilet can be challenging and most often the only option is going to nearby restaurants and cafes. Having this information handy can make things much easier.”
The service will be accessible to users both in English and Hindi.
Google toilet locator is an attempt to making access to toilets easier by providing information on their locations every 500 metres in more cities.