The Indian Express                09.03.2013

Submit report on toilets for women, HC tells civic bodies

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the civic agencies in the capital to look into the issue of public toilets for women and submit status reports to the court within three weeks.

A division bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Indermeet Kaur asked the three municipal corporations, New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board to file their status report on the condition of toilets, after it was informed that there were no functional public toilets for women in most areas in the city, despite numerous assurances and directions from the government. The court passed the order on a PIL filed by advocate Ashok Aggarwal seeking direction to the authorities for their alleged failure to maintain toilets for women.

The court also directed the Central Pollution Control Board to file a separate report in this regard within three weeks after the civic agencies file their report.

Advocate Ashok Aggarwal told Newsline that the original PIL relating to public sanitation facilities was filed before the Supreme Court in the 1990s. "In 2001-02 the apex court sent the case to the Delhi High Court and asked it to monitor the situation," Aggarwal said.

Aggarwal told the court on Friday that a survey done in some areas of North and South Delhi had revealed that while there were very few public toilets for women in the city, and most of them were not functional.

"Some are locked while others are defunct," Aggarwal said, adding that this created a health and safety hazard for women as well as giving rise to the environmental issue of open defecation.