Mumbai’s costliest public toilet, built at ₹90 lakh on Marine Drive, now open for business
The toilet has been designed to go with Marine Drive’s art deco architecture and constructed under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. The BMC plans to keep the facility free for use for the next two months after which it may levy a fee.
The city’s iconic promenade at Marine Drive has been gifted a swanky new public toilet which opened on Tuesday. At an estimated cost of ₹90 lakh, the public facility has already earned the tag of city’s most expensive toilet.
Designed to go with Marine Drive’s art deco architecture, the toilet has been constructed under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative by the Jindal Group and Samatech. It has been handed over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for maintenance. The civic body plans to keep the facility free for use for the next two months after which it may levy a fee.
BMC spends around ₹25-30 lakh on an average to construct a public toilet but in this case, most of the building material and designing came at zero charge to the civic body.
“Several other companies and consultants have contributed their expertise and materials free of cost for the [Marine Drive] project. The design of the toilet goes with the art deco architecture [around] and was built using weathering steel. It has solar panels installed on the roof which will generate enough power to illuminate the toilet,” said Akshat Gupta, co-founder of Samatech.
“We have made sure that the waste is not disposed in the Marine Drive bay and will be carried from the sewage tanks to the civic body’s sewage treatment plants,” he said.
On Monday, Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray inaugurated the public toilet located opposite the Air India building. “This is a world-class facility being made available to citizens. The toilet has been built under the CSR but it is our responsibility to keep it clean and well maintained,” he said.
This is the only public toilet in a 2.8 km radius of the Marine Drive promenade. Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of A ward (Fort, Nariman Point), said, “We will observe the maintenance and the usage of the public toilet for the next two months and will then decide if we should continue it without charging users.”
A civic official, who wished to remain anonymous, estimated that it could cost the BMC up to ₹1 lakh per month for the toilet’s maintenance vis-a-vis house-keeping services, sewage transport, and maintenance of solar panels.
Harshita Narvekar, the local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator, said that Marine Drive sees a large footfall and public amenities must be made available. “The idea to build this toilet was initiated by Nariman Point Churchgate Citizens Association last year. The existing toilet was poorly maintained and needed to be revamped,” she said.