Chennai: Efforts of the civic body to aid public health and sanitation by installing bio-toilets have turned futile due to poor maintenance of these toilets.
The number of bio-toilets, people say, is not sufficient to cater to for such large population, as many of them are found non-functional and most poorly maintained.
As per Greater Chennai Corporation officials, of Rs 2,000 crore allocated for infrastructure development of Chennai for 2016-17, nearly Rs 60 crore was spent for installing bio-toilets across 350 locations across the city.
No water connection and broken doors are issues plaguing most of these toilets, for instance, at Broadway bus terminus, Besant Nagar bus stop and Pondi Bazaar.
In Besant Nagar, waste is dumped at the entrance of a bio-toilet. At the bus stop, bio-toilets have broken sheds after Vardah, thus rendered useless for bus passengers.
“Even the pavement dwellers do not use these toilets, as people can easily peep in from the buses. Though the city Corporation is planning to mend damaged toilets after Vardah, placing them it in the same place will be wasting of public funds,” said V Chandrasekhar, President of Senior Citizens Group of Besant Nagar.
Though there are separate toilets for physically challenged and elderly people, most toilets are built on footpaths in many places without any elevation aid, making it difficult to be used by them.
“It is difficult to climb up the footpath in a wheelchair or with crutches. I can’t even stand without crutches so I am forced to take to open defecation,” said R. Ramesh, a street vendor.
