A mere 500 public toilets in Bangalore

The Garden City that boasts of being home to the largest number of software companies and engineering colleges unfortunately lacks the basic facilities of having enough toilets.

According to data available with the BBMP, for a population of 96.2 lakh, there are about 500 public toilets, out of which only 200 are functional. That means that there is 1 toilet available for every 19,000 people.

According to Shiv Kumar S, corporator of Shantalanagar, there are various reasons as to why public toilets are not being maintained in a hygienic manner.

We need at least 2-3 times more number of toilets in a city like Bangalore. Also, the condition of these toilets are bad because of the differences between the corporators and the people maintaining the toilets, he said.

Bangalore city used to have 100 wards but today the numbers have gone up to 198 wards.

According to reports, the corporators received a sum of Rs5 crore for development of wards.  

“The public came to us asking us to build public-toilets and we built 3-4 public toilets in their areas,” said Uday Shankar, a corporator.

Around 1 crore people reside in Bangalore and the city is visited by over 2 crore people everyday.

Having said that, Shankar said that Bangalore requires at least 25,000 public toilets to suffice the requirement.

Around a year ago, a corporate company proposed to the BBMP that they would take up building and maintaining e-toilets in the city, in return for being able to advertise on these toilets. The offer continues to be negotiated, said Shankar.