Plan panel spending on toilets creates a stink

The Planning Commission, which has been propagating the inclusive growth approach, has made the toilets in Yojana Bhawan — its headquarters — exclusive for its senior-level officials. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jun 6, 2012, 15:04:46 IST

Reuters | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Planning Commission’s inclusive plank has turned exclusive in its own office. The plan panel, which has been propagating the inclusive growth approach, has made the toilets in Yojana Bhawan — its headquarters — exclusive for its senior-level officials.

To maintain the exclusivity, the panel installed an access system costing Rs 5.19 lakh in the toilets and distributed 60 swipe cards to officials above the level of director. It also posted janitors in the area to ensure that others do not use the toilet.

In a reply to a RTI query, the panel admitted that the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has distributed 60 swipe cards to ensure privileged usage of the toilets. The panel had got four swanky toilets built for Rs 47.66 lakh — which amounts to the cost of two Delhi Development Authority double-bedroom flats, and enough to provide a day’s subsidised food to around 15 lakh poor people.

The original plan of the panel was to get the ‘VIP toilets’ renovated to the standards set by the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport. In April 2011, a proposal was floated to restrict entry to the toilets, so they could be kept clear and the fittings would not be disturbed.

The proposal received the instant approval of top echelons of the commission, who said that unclean toilets would present a bad picture to global dignitaries visiting the Planning Commission office. Though the access system was installed and operationalised in May, it was withdrawn after some mediapersons protested. The plan panel got around Rs. 1 lakh crore allocated for uplifting the poor, but failed to enforce the same in its own office.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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