Stinking ‘loo’t: Chennai Corporation spends Rs 364 on ‘maintenance’ of each toilet seat daily

CHENNAI: Is a scam worth multi-hundred crores of rupees possible in a seemingly humble and innocuous toilet maintenance contract? A scrutiny of the Greater Chennai Corporation’s (GCC) tender papers reveals a big ‘yes’.

How? A study of toilets in Royapuram zone is a case in point.

Between Jan 2022 and April 2023, GCC maintained a total of 1,431 toilet seats at a total cost of Rs16.62 lakh, which works out to Rs3.18 a seat per day. Needless to say, the toilet seats were filthy, stinking and a big put-away for people in need, however urgent it may be.

Later, for a six-month period from Feb to Aug 2023, GCC decided to privatise 2,519 public toilet seats including e-toilets and booth toilets in the same zone at an enhanced maintenance cost of Rs78 a seat per day — a jump of 24.5 times. And the total tender cost was Rs3.58 crore.

As if this was not enough, the daily maintenance cost of each seat was increased to Rs 363.9 a day for a total of 3,270 seats in Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Marina Beach — which is a 115-time in costs when GCC directly maintained the seats. The total cost of this tender was an eye-popping Rs 430 crore for a period of eight years, including Rs 82 crore for constructing 662 new toilet seats in these areas. The tender was prepared in Sept 2022, and a letter of acceptance for the contractor DRRSB Infra was given by the special projects department on Feb 16, 2023. Now GCC has decided to expand the scam across the city at a cost of Rs1,167 crore.