Lack of toilets to wash away mapping plans?

LUCKNOW: Lucknow`s plans to roll out a mobile toilet-locator may hit a roadblock even before its launch as the number of washrooms in city are far less than the required number.

Presently, there are 300 toilets or 1,500 seats in the city for a population of 30 lakh people, which means one seat for 2,500 people. However, according to Uttar Pradesh's public health manual one toilet seat per 35 men and per 25 women. The figures mean the city needs one lakh more public toilets .

The mobile toilet-locator will also provide details of toilets in malls, petrol pumps, parks and railway and bus stations but even after adding this number there are no more than 2,000 toilet seats in Lucknow.

As per Swachh Bharat guidelines all commercial areas under municipal jurisdiction should have public toilets within a distance of one kilometre. Areas like Bhootnath, Gole market, Kapoorthala, Alambagh and

Chowk

neither have many public toilets nor malls and petrol pumps.

In

Hazratganj

, there is just one toilet near the Janpath taxi stand to cater to the 15,000-strong crowd that vi sits the area everyday. The nearest mall is Saharaganj but it takes almost 30 minutes to reach the place, thanks to heavy traffic due to Metro diversions. The toilets in

Sarojini Naidu Park

and GPO Park have broken seats and washbasins. The SBM guidelines al so make it mandatory for toilets to offer drinking water facilities and ramps, however, almost all the toilets in the city remain in pathetic condition and lack basic amenities.

Additional municipal commissioner PK Srivastava said, “The construction of several public and community toilets in the city is in pipeline and the toilets will be ready soon. We need cooperation from people to keep the toilets in an usable condition.“

Lucknow is among 85 cities selected by the central government for launching mobile toilet-locators. The project will sync the locations of public as well as community toilets in the city to Google Maps. The facility will become functional in the city from October 2.