According to the BMC's Solid Waste Management (SWM) department, the deadline to construct 5,170 community toilet seats ended in September 2018.
Despite failing to construct planned community toilet seats in time, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has proposed to construct 22,774 more community toilet seats under phase 11. Surprisingly, it has already failed to get a contractor for the same.
The civic body claims to have achieved the open defecation free tag. However, the fact is hard to digest since it failed to construct the required number of community toilet seats in the last three years.
According to the BMC's Solid Waste Management (SWM) department, the deadline to construct 5,170 community toilet seats ended in September 2018. But, they could only constructed just 2,720 community toilet seats.
Vishwas Shankarwar, deputy municipal commissioner (SWM) said that the work of 1,724 seats is underway while the contract for the remaining 768 seats has been cancelled owing to various reasons. The reason behind the delay is that the BMC failed to find space in time to build them.
The civic body had floated 38 tenders for construction of 22,774 toilet seats. But, it could not get bids for 23 tenders.
As per BMC records, it has built 14,369 toilets seats in the city between 1997 and 2018 between phase 1 to 9. These community toilets were handed over to registered societies of slum residents.
The toilets were sanctioned under the scheme where local people get involved in the designing, construction, and maintenance of toilets. While doing so, the civic body did not allocate space to the toilets. "No one wants a public toilet in front of his or her house. So it is difficult to find a space for toilets. Thus the construction gets delayed," said Shankarwar.
"Many of the toilets are in dense slum pockets where the land belongs to the collector, Mumbai Port Trust, Forest Department among many others. That makes the task to get permission more difficult for BMC. Some slums are on top of hills and are connected by narrow roads, so the construction material cannot be carried with vehicles are some more reasons to delay the work."
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