Soon locating functional toilets across the cities will be as easy as finding hotels, restaurants and other establishments with the help of Google maps.
For now, the facility is available in Delhi and four NCR cities — Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Noida — and two cities in Madhya Pradesh — Indore and Bhopal. On Thursday, Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu launched an App ‘Swachchh Public Toilet’ through which a user can access public toilets situated near malls, hospitals, bus and railway, fuel stations and metro stations, and public and community toilets complexes in the select seven cities.
“Soon facilities will be extended across the country,” Naidu said adding that the move aims to ensure ‘ease of access to public toilets’ under the Swachh Bharat Mission. The Ministry of Urban Development has teamed up with Google and August Communication to enable toilet locator tool within Maps.
The move aims to address open urination and open defecation which has become a nuisance in the country in want of adequate and functional toilets. Presently, almost 60 per cent of the country's 1.2 billion people still defecate and urinate in the open, according to the government data.
The App also gives information about the nature of the toilet seat available, free or pay for use, working hours etc.
Using the key word ‘Swachh Public Toilet’, users can access 5,162 public toilets located near malls, hospitals, bus and railway stations, fuel stations, metro stations and public and community toilet complexes in the five cities in NCR and 703 in Bhopal and 411 in Indore.
Naidu also launched free to use ‘Smart Toilets’ set up by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) under PPP model at National Gallery of Art on Shershah Road, opposite Haryana Bhawan on Copernicus Marg and near Tolstoy Marg Metro Station. Each such complex has one WC toilet seat and four urinals for gents, one WC each for women and differently abled, Water ATM, Bank ATM and Digital Health Centres.
One ‘Reverse Vendor Machine’ set up by NDMC at Gate No.2, Palika Market, New Delhi was also launched. When a plastic bottle is dropped in to this machines, it gives a receipt of credit of up to one rupee. NDMC is setting up 20 such machines which help in preventing littering of plastic bottles.
Speaking about the progress of Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas since its launch in October,2014, Naidu said the mission picked up momentum during 2016 with 502 cities and towns including New Delhi Municipal Council declaring themselves 'Open Defecation Free' during this year. Most of these of these claims were verified independently. Another 237 cities and towns are set to become ODF by March next year. He said that during this year, the Mission in urban areas reached halfway mark in toilet construction against the mission targets.
Against the target of construction of 66 lakh individual household toilets, 27,81,883 such toilets have already been built and construction of another 21,43,222 is in progress. While over five lakh community and public toilet seats are to be built, 1.07 lakh seats have already been built so far and another 1.30 lakh toilet seats are under construction.