The Hindu              02.09.2013

Public toilets get cleaner as civic body takes action

Odour-filled, dirty public toilets maintained by the Coimbatore Corporation are a thing of the past. The public convenience facilities are not just clean, they also have adequate water supply, doors in good condition and proper lighting.

The changeover has come about after the civic body initiated steps to improve the monitoring mechanism. Corporation Commissioner G. Latha said that her surprise visits to public convenience facilities revealed that there was no proper monitoring mechanism, which helped the contractors get away easily without fulfilling their obligations.

Now the Corporation’s sanitary supervisors visit almost 95 per cent of the 268 toilets to ensure that they are clean, have enough water, have the lights in working condition, etc. And the supervisors do it twice a day — morning and evening.

The change is visible on the ground. Kanniamma, who stays in Ondipudur, said that the contractor supplied acid, bleaching powder, etc in time and ensured that they cleaned the toilet complex. The contractor also ensured their complaints regarding doors, motors that pump water, etc were addressed at the earliest. Hygiene at the toilet had visibly improved in that people no longer hesitated using them, said Lakshmi Lakshmanan, a Singanallur resident.

Commissioner Ms. Latha said that sanitary supervisors would visit every day the public toilets they were assigned to supervise and send reports over a specially designed mobile application. The Corporation would receive the same and senior officials would monitor the developments on a day-to-day basis. At places where the supervisors reported problems, the Commissioner and the contractor concerned would get the report for follow-up action. After carrying out the corrections, the contractors concerned would report to the Corporation, which would verify the claims based on the supervisor’s report. The Corporation would identify contractors against whom the Corporation received negative reports and hold over their payment. Ms. Latha said that the Corporation had so far not delayed payments to contractors as the new system had been in place for only a month now.