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Rundown Public Toilets-II

'Too dirty, it makes you vomit’

Raihan Sabuktagin
"It’s too dirty to use. This makes you vomit," said Mustakim, a shopkeeper, showing the floor of a DCC-run public toilet at Jatrabari, overflowed with filthy water.
People have to stand in front of the basin or urinal very carefully to escape from the dirty water always overflowing the floor. The lessee of the toilet just collects money from the users but spend almost nothing on cleaning the toilet, alleged Mustakim.
This is a general picture of most of the public toilets in the city. Due to poor maintenance most of them are unusable. Their dilapidated condition clearly shows that the contractors used substandard construction materials and toilet fittings.
But people are forced to use
these toilets despite the unhygienic condition.
Ruplal (not his real name), sweeper of a public toilet, said most of the time he cleans the toilet only with fresh water as his employer does not provide bleaching powder regularly.
DCC sources said there were some special provisions in the plan for public toilets that included both high and low commodes, urinals, basin, breast-feeding space and dressing room for women and separate entrance for men and women.
In reality, most of the toilets do not have these facilities. The contractors used low quality construction materials and toilet fittings. As a result, the pans and basins of the toilets have become unusable within a very short time.
An official of Dhaka City
Corporation (DCC) admitted the poor management of the public toilets. He said most of the toilets could not be maintained properly due to legal tangles between the city corporation and the lessees.
These lessees rarely follow their contracts and they often do not pay the promised rent to the DCC, he said.
The zonal offices of DCC handle lease and monitoring of die public toilets while the estate department deals with the cases pending in courts for a long lime.
Some of the cases have been pending since 1995. the DCC official said adding that the lessees showing excuse of the cases do not pay elec tricityor water bills.
The DCC took money from the donors and government for constructing the public toilets but the way DCC implemented the pro-
ject is really surprising, he said.
The city corporation planned to construct 100 public toilets and Asian Development Bank provided about Tk 6 crore for construction of70 toilets.
The DCC now has only 69 public toilets for over one crore city’dwellers. But a large number of them are either shut it unusable.
In 200-1, DCC floated tender for 56 toilets out of 100. But later it constructed 38 toilets as the authorities failed to allocate space for 11 toilets while construction of some toilets was postponed due to objection from local people or organisations.
Officials of the zonal offices of DCC decliner! to say anything about ihc maintenance and legal disputes over the public toilcis without instruction from the higher authorities.