The Hindu 22.04.2010
28 building owners to get notices
Staff Reporter
| Lack of toilet facilities for staff there |
A 10-member squad inspected 34 buildings
Found that the buildings deviated from the plan
Kozhikode: The Town Planning Office, on Thursday, will issue notice to owners of 28 commercial buildings in the city Corporation limits for failure to provide toilet facilities for employees of business establishments functioning in these buildings.
A meeting under the chairmanship of the District Collector on April 6 had mandated a 10-member enforcement squad, comprising the Town Planning Officer, the Corporation Health Officer, the district labour officer, a representative of the police department, and three representatives each of women's organisations and traders' organisations, to inspect toilet facilities at commercial buildings in the city and to submit a report to the Collector.
After inspecting 34 buildings within a week, the squad submitted a report to the District Collector last Friday.
It was decided then to issue notice to the erring building owners and conduct another inspection of these buildings on April 26 to see if remedial action was being taken.
However, delay in sending notice by the Town Planning Office may force the squad to postpone the inspection date to give the building owners at least a week's time.
Poor sanitation
K.S. Jayashree, secretary of Sthree Chethana, a women's organisation, and who is a member of the enforcement squad, said the buildings had deviated from the plan and most had failed to provide toilets on every floor as per Corporation rules, while existing toilets maintained poor sanitation and a few did not even have water supply.
It had also come to the notice of the squad that all except one among the inspected buildings had female employees. In a few cases, the tenants had converted the toilets into godowns. The Town Planning Officer said the notice and the inspection to follow would focus on coming up with a workable solution that would ensure that the building owners rectified deviations from the approved plan and provide usable toilet facilities for employees and customers at the shops in these buildings.
The issue of public toilets in the city, especially the provision of safe and clean toilets for women, has been kept alive by voluntary organisations, women's activists and the media since a hidden camera was found in the toilet of a hotel in the city on March 11.
Role of women's groups
Women's groups have since used the issue to raise various aspects of the problem, including maintenance of existing public toilet facilities, construction of new public toilets at locations where there are none at present and denial of toilet facilities to employees of private commercial establishments.
