A ‘no toilet’ board counters open defecation-free status

GURUGRAM: In a district declared

open defecation

free by the state government three months ago, a small signboard in a slum makes a loud noise. “Yahan shauchalaya ki suvidha nahi hai (there is no toilet facility here)”, reads the board at

Prem Nagar

in Sector 12.

The slum is home to nearly 300 families, all of whom trek a few kilometres daily to the nearest open fields to relieve themselves. Among them is 30-year-old Mithilesh, who was hit by a car four years ago and her leg was severely fractured. Though the injury has healed, she is not fit enough to walk the distance to the field.

“I have no option but to defecate in my clothes. Someone in my family has to clean me up. What to do? We have no toilets here,” Mithilesh said.

Her neighbour Radha said that every morning, women of the slum walk in groups to the ground beyond

Lottery Bazaar

with water bottles and cans. “Even our young daughters have to defecate in the open. This is most embarrassing,” she said.

Although there is a public toilet behind the slum, it charges between Rs 5 and Rs 10 from every person, which the residents said was not affordable on a daily basis. “The toilet charges us every time we go to relieve ourselves. With eight people in the family, if we have to use the toilet multiple times, it comes to around Rs 100 a day. We cannot spare that much of money,” said Asha Devi, a slum dweller. Asha said they had been promised toilets by the authorities and had submitted documents and identity cards for that.

The residents said they were now being asked to vacate the land. Sources said that though the slum is an unauthorised colony, the administration ought to have built portable toilets there.

The Gurgaon municipal corporation has claimed to have built toilets in slums across the city. But many people in these areas have countered the claims.

Asked about the civic body’s claim, Anu Sheokhand, the joint commissioner of Zone II and nodal officer for the Swachh Bharat mission in Gurgaon, said: “We have built toilets for the slums in a complex nearby. We are supposed to construct such facilities within 500 metres.”

Beginning Thursday, the city will be appraised on various parameters in the latest round of the Swachh Sarvekshan, and an instance like Prem Nagar won’t do its chances of a good score any good. In last year’s survey, Gurgaon ranked a poor 112th among 434 cities, slipping sharply from its 36th position (out of 73 cities) in 2016.