The Maya Bazaar slum in Vannarpet has not been provided even basic toilet rackfacilities. Venkatamma, a manual labourer, is cooking lunch while her three scantily-clothed children play in the dirty stream that flows past her tiny house. She says, “Many people here have built their own toilets. But my husband and I earn only Rs. 1,500 a month, and of that Rs. 600 goes for rent.”
‘No man’s land: community toilets’
BANGALORE: “If I need to relieve myself, I have to go to the open field across the road either before sunrise or after sunset. That has been my routine for years. It is very rare that I go to the community toilets because I have to pay to use them,” says Zaithunissa Begum, a resident of Shashtrinagar slum in Koramangala.
There are many like her in India’s technology capital, who still use open fields. With no access to sanitation facilities, residents of the city’s 400-odd slums are forced to relieve themselves in the open.
The Hindu visited a few city slums to do a reality check on the average citizen’s access to clean toilets. World Toilet Day is being observed on November 19, to increase awareness of a citizen’s right to a toilet environment of cleanliness, hygiene and privacy.
