Children demanded immediate public toilets in slums and proper attention to renovation of parks in Brahmapur city at the 11th meeting of the Children’s Federation held in Brahmapur. Over 150 children from 22 slums and 22 child clubs discussed the issues on open air defecation and their consequences on children health and mental growth.
They urged the Brahmapur Municipal Corporation (BMC) for priority on construction of community toilets immediately in all slums, creation of awareness among slums dwellers to use these toilets and stop open defecation and declaration of Brahmapur as Odisha’s first open defecation free city. In this meeting Sruti Sahu of Raghupati Nagar, Basant Kumar Das, Old Brahmapur Bauri Street, Sivani Das of Phulasundari Street, Jhili Jena of Pichipicha Nagar, Amit Das, Goudabandh Street, Subhasree Behera, Raghupati Nagar, Sunil Sethy, Purnabasi Colony and other members of the federation shared their opinion.
Notably, open air defecation is the main cause of unhealthy, unhygienic and unsafe condition in most of the slums in Brahmapur city which resulted in child morbidity and mortality. Out of 3, 55, 823 people in Brahmapur (Census, 2011), 33 per cent (1, 17, 541) live in slums, 59.5 per cent defecate in open due to lack of access to individual and community toilets, while only 3 per cent of the slum dwellers use community toilet.
On the other hand 15.1 per cent of the non-slums households in the city also choose open defecation due to deficiency of individual toilet facilities. The federation demanded immediate attention to construction of new public toilets and renovation of all old public toilets in all slums rapidly. It also demanded that BMC should make laws for use of toilets as mandatory, besides implementing the City Sanitation Plan, 2011.