BHUBANESWAR: Soon you will
be able to stop worrying about where to relieve yourself while you’re
out in the capital. The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on
Monday sought the state government’s permission to float a tender to
begin construction of public toilets.

While 126 public toilets
were proposed to be set up at a cost of nearly Rs 12 crore, the BMC
would construct 26 toilets at major public places in the first phase.
“The public toilet project would be funded by Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,” said city mayor A N Jena.

“The 26 toilets would be set up at a cost of around Rs six crore. We
have moved the state housing and urban development (H&UD) department
seeking permission for floating the tenders,” Jena said.

At
present, the city has only 38 public toilets and 25 community toilets,
and most of them are in bad shape because of lack of maintenance. None
of the major markets in Ashok Nagar, Bapuji Nagar, Saheed Nagar, Unit-IV
and Master Canteen that attract hordes of people all through the day,
have any toilet facilities. Unit-I Market, one of the largest wholesale
markets in the state with over 1,500 shops, has only four urinals and
that, too, only for men.

The situation
worsens during assembly sessions when hundreds of people from across
the state come to the state capital and hold rallies and demonstrations.
Though the state government has designated an area for staging
demonstrations, the place is without any public facilities, including a
toilet. Women
protesters are the worst sufferers. Though the civic body had
constructed 38 public toilets in public private partnership (PPP) mode,
the majority of the people are not even aware that they exist.

“Rules of the World Health Organization
say that for every 100 people there should at least be one public
toilet. Bhubaneswar, with a population of over eight lakh, should have
8,000 public toilets. But the city does not have even 80,” said Sagar
Sarangi, a resident of Unit-I area.