The city has around 700 public toilets and less than 400 of them are
in useable condition. Newly added wards, consisting 110 villages around
the city, do not have a single public toilet. This was revealed during
the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council meeting here on
Tuesday.

Some of the existing public toilets were constructed by
Infosys Foundation, while some were constructed under MLAs and MPs
funds. A few were constructed by BBMP, but it was not able to maintain
them.

Commissioner Lakshminarayana told Express, there are around
700 public toilets, of which 300 were constructed by Infosys Foundation.
But they were not maintained. “Now, we are considering to call for
tender and the builder has to construct toilets and maintain them.”

BBMP
is now planning to construct more public toilets. “Funds will be
allotted from the Mayor’s grants for constructing one public toilet per
ward,” Mayor B S Sathyanarayana told the Council meeting. The toilets,
he said, will be constructed in the BBMP land and the councillors can
decide the place where the public toilet can be constructed in their
wards.

BBMP is also considering to construct the toilets under
Public-Private partnership (PPP) model. “The BBMP is into constructing
toilets, but not maintaining them,” said Commissioner M
Lakshminarayana.  “Let us call for tenders and let the bidder put up
advertisement hoardings, collect fee from public for usage of toilets
and maintain them. Also, they can adopt the existing toilets,” he said.

Earlier,
initiating the debate on the subject during the the meeting, Jayamahal
ward Councillor M K Gunashekar said there are very few public toilets in
the city and majority of them do not have water supply. “BWSSB has
disconnected water supply as BBMP has not paid water bills,” he said. He
also urged the Mayor and Commissioner to inspect public toilets.
“According to section 58(4) of Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, it
is an obligatory duty of BBMP to provide public toilets. But we are
failing in this regard,” he said

According to Gunashekar, a survey
conducted by a Bangalore-based agency stressed that the city needs
15,000 public toilets. He also said in this year’s budget, BBMP has not
allotted funds for public toilets.