Corpn mulls new plan to keep public toilets in shape, RWAs to take charge

After tasting failure on several occasions in maintaining public toilets in the past, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation is now mulling a new policy to maintain them and urinals within its jurisdiction in a better way.

The new policy aims at ensuring better hygiene at public toilets and urinals and also generating maximum revenue for the civic body.

According to the proposal, which has got in-principle approval from the top officials, while the corporation will rope in the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and Market Trade Associations (MTAs) for the maintenance of public toilets and urinals, it will auction the wall space of these public utilities for advertisement.

“As per plans, the corporation will hand over the public toilets and urinals to RWAs and the MTAs for day-to-day maintenance. The corporation will bear all the sanitation costs. However, the advertisement rights on these public toilets will remain with it,” said a senior SDMC official.

“It will be a departue from initiatives in the past wherein the advertisement rights were given to private players who got into an agreement with the corporation to maintain toilet blocks,” the official added.

Officials said the new policy will take care of the problems which emerged in the past wherein the private companies were accused of not maintaining the toilets, and many times even closing them, even as they earned huge revenue through advertisements.
They said the new policy is likely to bring the desired results.

Twin aims

“With the RWAs and MTAs becoming a stakeholder in the initiative, better sanitation will be maintained at public toilets.

On the other hand, it is expected to generate a handsome revenue through advertisements as many public toilets and urinals are located at prime commercial centres, which will bring good returns,” the official said.

There are around 500 public toilets and urinals which fall under the jurisdiction of the South Corportion.