MCG develops app to track toilet facilities in city

After receiving a large number of complaints from residents regarding the state of toilets in the city, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has developed an app for its staff to monitor the facilities

After receiving a large number of complaints from residents regarding the state of toilets in the city, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has developed an app for its staff to monitor the facilities.

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Officials, especially those with the sanitation wing, have been tasked with covering the city’s 122 toilets and inspect each for cleanliness, water and electricity connection, working taps, switches, and availability of toiletries. Subsequently, they will have to upload photos in the app for verification.

“People have been lodging complaints with the MCG that the toilets are not clean, locked, or do not have running water or electricity connection. To overcome this, we hence decided to develop a QR-code based internal app where it would be mandatory for sanitary inspectors or assistant sanitary inspectors to upload photos of clean and working public toilets,” said Dheeraj Kumar, joint commissioner, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), MCG.

Kumar said that the objective behind uploading photos of “clean and functioning” toilets is to maintain some level of supervision and ensure that the sanitation inspector or assistant sanitation inspector are getting the toilets cleaned and ensuring that all provisions are present inside the facility regularly.

The app developed last week, however, does not have a name.

The condition of toilets has been a major concern, especially, over the past three years.

In July 2018, the only time a survey of public toilets was carried out, MCG officials had found that 60 of the 99 public toilets in the city did not have continuous water and electricity supply due to which the facilities were of little use to the public.

In May 2018, during a surprise inspection, the then MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav had also found many public toilets across the city to be locked, prompting MCG to terminate and penalise several of their contractors.

There are 122 MCG toilets in the city, of which 111 are public toilets and 11 are community toilets.

The public toilets are open from 6 am-10 pm while the community toilets are open 24x7.

Besides the app, Dr Harbhajan Singh, SBM team member, MCG, said that the civic body has also linked itself to two government apps, the SBM toilet locator and Swachh Haryana app.

“Toilets of only those cities that have been certified ODF++ by the central government are included in the SBM toilet locator app. From the app, residents can navigate their way to the closest public toilet. Further, the MCG has also linked itself with the Swachh Haryana App, where a dedicated section for public toilets is available. In this section, residents can lodge complaints such as unclean toilets, toilets operating without any water supply or electricity connection, or toilets in need of repair,” said Singh.

ODF (open defecation free) ++ certifies that a city is free of open defecation and that all sewage in the city is properly managed and treated, without it being discharged in stormwater drains, water bodies or vacant plots.

Gurugram was certified as ODF++ in 2019.