Loo & behold: More urinals for Games

To ensure that visitors thronging the Capital during Commonwealth Games 2010 don’t have to search far and wide for toilets, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is trying to create better public amenities, reports Neelam Pandey.

To ensure that visitors thronging the Capital during Commonwealth Games 2010 don’t have to search far and wide for toilets, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is trying to create better public amenities.

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The civic agency has identified 1,000 sites to construct urinal blocks, of these only 250 will be for women. After facing flak for poor upkeep of its community toilet complexes in the city, the MCD claims these urinal blocks will be constructed within a period of four months. Users will not have to pay to use them.

Asked why the agency was building urinals instead of toilet blocks, MCD commissioner KS Mehra said the city already had 1,250 of those. “These toilets were not maintained properly, but we will take care of it. Besides, urinals occupy less space,” said Mehra

“We have decided to involve private players to build international standard public toilets which will be maintained by the company too”, said a senior MCD official.

The civic agency has sought private sector participation for the upgradation, operation and maintenance of these 1,000 existing public urinals in MCD area, which would also fetch revenue or the civic body. The private company will earn revenue through advertisement and will share it with the MCD.

“The firm maintaining these facilities will be able to earn revenue from advertisement displays within 1 km radius of the urinal,” added the official. The private company would maintain and operate the toilet blocks for 20 years.