The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sought an action-taken report (ATR) from the State’s Chief Secretary within four weeks over the pitiable condition of the bio-toilets established in Dhamra by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Supreme Court lawyer and rights activist Radhakanta Tripathy filed a petition before the NHRC seeking Commission's intervention to ensure hygiene of the rural mass and save the women folk who are eventually suffer from harassment due to the fault of these bio-toilets originally aimed at solving the problem of urination and defecation of the local people. Notably, the bio-toilet mission was inaugurated by two Central Ministers Jairam Ramesh and Srikanta Jena.
“These toilets were used only for a couple of days after their installation and now almost all of them have been abandoned. The villagers complain the toilet installed in the village lacks water supply and proper ventilation. At first, the waste could not pass, the water supply got disrupted, and then the doors got damaged. The units were so small that we felt suffocated inside the toilet due to lack of ventilation. Besides, there was foul smell coming from the units for 24 hours. Even though the toilets have been non-functional for more than a year now, nobody from the Government has ever enquired about them,” the petitioner contended.
The critical issue involved in this case is that the loos are so small and air-tight that a person feels suffocated after a few minutes. There is no system for air circulation as these are fully covered with fiber body.
The State Rural Development Department had installed dozens of bio-toilets in parts of Dhamra and Basudevpur blocks and had announced more such units along the 60km Dhamra-Jamjhadi defence road, but it is yet to be materialized.
The inaction of the Government to renovate/repair these toilets and the failure of the Government to install toilets with ventilation facilities forces the locals especially the women to defecate in the open. This is not only an abominable phenomenon but also a serious case of violation of human rights, Radhakanta alleged. He urged the Commission to remove the abandoned toilets and construct new ones at appropriate places to combat the menace of open defecation.