On Wednesday, August 23 at 5:47 pm IST, a billion Indians will be glued to the live streaming on their TV sets from the ISRO Mission Control to witness the success of Chandrayaan-3, India’s latest moon mission.
This time around there is supreme confidence all around that India will succeed in achieving a soft touchdown of the lander module, setting the stage for the next ambitious mission of landing an Indian astronaut on the moon.
As things stand, India is a nation of sharp contrasts. On the one hand we are successfully pursuing hi-tech goals such as the Moon Mission and on the other we are still unable to get our act together on public hygiene and sanitation.
The worst manifestation of this is in the form of the filthiest of public urinals and toilets in most Indian cities. There are signs of change but not as widespread and conspicuous as 21st century India deserves.
Greater sensitivity to public convenience can now be seen in a number of restaurants which is a welcome sign. By and large the malls in our cities which see high footfalls, especially on the weekends, have well-maintained restrooms with a dedicated staff round-the-clock. The same is true of the expressway food malls such as the ones on the Mumbai-Pune stretch. In some cities such as Kolkata and tourism-driven Nainital, noteworthy efforts have been made by the local civic bodies through the pay-and-use mechanism.
These are all welcome signs of change but a lot, lot more needs to be done with conscious effort by civic administrators across the country.
Take the case of a city like Pune which is far bigger and more prosperous than many state capitals. Celebrated as the ‘Queen of the Deccan’ and ‘Oxford of the East’, Pune has all the attributes of a well-rounded city that has made a mark in higher education, science and technology, IT and industry; sports, research and innovation. One of the wealthiest denizens of this city launched the Adar Poonawalla Clean City Initiative in 2015 with a personal contribution of Rs 120 crore to support PM Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission and make a difference to Pune.
The reality, however, tells a different story: Pune has some of the filthiest public toilets bringing shame to the city and as far as garbage management is concerned, the civic administration is clearly overwhelmed.
In 2021, 23 villages were freshly merged with the Pune Municipal Corporation, after 11 villages had been merged in 2017. This considerably expanded the city limits and vastly strained and stretched the civic administration. Consequently, Pune's Swachh Bharat rank slipped from 5 in 2021 to 9 in 2022 among 45 cities in the Swachh Survekshan 2022 – the annual national survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in villages, cities and towns.
This, however, is no excuse for Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) complete neglect and apathy of public toilets in the city. The city for example, has excellent public gardens- more than a hundred of them, very well maintained and much-loved by morning walkers and joggers. Even the walls of the public toilets in these gardens have been beautified with tree and flower motifs and the Swachh Bharat logo. But the toilets themselves suffer from zero maintenance as though the garden staff and the civic administration has nothing to do with them.
Across the city, public conveniences which the poor are forced to use are cesspools of filth without proper maintenance and upkeep; often with the taps and pipes stolen; without lights and without water supply.
Sanjay Deshpande, a city builder with civic consciousness, was so appalled by the state of affairs that some years ago he adopted a public toilet at the busy Nal Stop junction on Karve Road, and paid for its maintenance thrice a day. His observations from travel within and outside India were simple and straightforward: Clean public toilets have adequate water; the walls are tiled, flower beds are planted on the premises and staff is appointed for cleanliness round the clock. He adopted these steps to transform the filthy urinal at Nal Stop, much to the appreciation of one and all.
Such is the state of affairs in Pune that even the fancy toilet block constructed in Aundh as part of the Smart City projects inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi in 2017 has been left neglected. Elsewhere, on Karve Road, a public toilet block is beautifully painted with the Swachh Bharat icon. But step inside and you could almost faint from the stench.
Hundreds of crores of rupees have been spent by civic bodies in Pune and other cities for painting walls and installing multi-coloured decorative street lights to promote India’s G20 Presidency and the Swachh Bharat campaign. Alas, just a fraction of that amount with some mindfulness and conscious effort would have done wonders to public sanitation in our country.
Why is it that a great civilisation like ours with missions to the Moon and Mars is unable to address the basic issue of public hygiene in this 75th year of Independence?
Abhay Vaidya has worked as a senior journalist with a number of leading publications. He is now director at a policy research think tank in Pune. He tweets at @abhay_vaidya
