Municipal commissioner
Shrikar Pardeshi said, “The plan will be prepared this calendar year
and implementation will start before December end. The civic body will
construct more toilets for men and women in different areas of the city. Most of them will be operated on pay-and-use basis.”

Pardeshi said that the presence of a huge floating population in the
twin towns results in lack of sanitation and inadequate number of
urinals. Referring to the problems of slums and chawls, Pardeshi said,
“Sometimes chawl owners remove or steal toilet doors to force people to
vacate. One such incident had occurred in Kasarwadi a year back.”

The civic administration has made a provision of Rs 3 crore in the
draft budget of 2013-14 for construction of toilet blocks. There are 71
slums in the city with a need for 2,014 more toilet seats. The PCMC is
making plans to construct the requisite number of toilets.

In
some areas there is no land available for the civic body to construct
toilets so the residents defecate in the open. The civic administration
plans to purchase 20 mobile toilets to solve this problem.

Vikas Patil, president of the Paryavaran Sanvardhan Samiti, said, “Slum-dwellers of Gandhinagar
slums openly defecate along the road. This area is located less than
half a kilometer from the PCMC main officebuilding in Pimpri.
Public toilets constructed by civic body are not maintained properly in
slums so people defecate in the open in several parts of the city.
Civic officials complain of lack of land to construct public toilets
but the civic administration has many properties in the city where it
can provide such facilities. If required, the PCMC should acquire land from private owners.“