Transparent Chennai (TC) has set out on an outreach agenda to share its research and talk to interested individuals and groups about the issue of public toilets in Chennai. TC’s research on public toilets began because of a need expressed by female informal sector workers during the course of a public meeting organized in 2009. Recently TC met with a group of women workers from Working Women’s Forum, Chennai. The Working Women’s Forum is an association for women in the unorganized and informal sector. We met a group of 15 women workers from various parts of the city.

When we asked them as to how many of them have ever used a public toilet we weren’t too surprised with their response. Most of the women were living in settlements without proper toilet facilities and resort to open defecation. “We don’t have a choice”, they said. Some said there was no public toilet in and around the area they lived, while others admit the presence of few toilets in their neighborhood which are in a bad condition. “2000 families and 1 toilet, will it be enough?” asked one of the women workers. They emphasized on the condition of public toilets in certain market areas where there are a lot of informal sector workers. In some of these areas the stench from nearby toilets is intolerable but unfortunately the workers cannot afford to move from there as their livelihood depends on it. What these women said only confirmed the purpose for our research on public toilets.

Some of these women have worked as health workers in slums teaching basic sanitation and personal hygiene to slum dwellers. Their training involved teaching people how to use a public toilet. They spoke of a time when Ms. Shanta Sheela Nair (currently Secretary to GOI, Ministry of Mines and former Home Secretary to Tamil Nadu Government and former Managing Director of Chennai Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply Board) was holding office in Chennai and sanitation not being an issue at that point of time. As health workers these women had a duty of reporting all the problems in the slums to Ms. Nair, who would immediately call the responsible authorities to attend to the problems at once. Many a times these health workers would voluntarily take the authorities on a visit to the slums to show them the problem.

The women seemed well aware of the politics associated with public toilets in the city. They remarked that a change in government always brings about some measures to renovate the public toilets but analogous to that they also increase the user charges. “The Corporation is only interested to work where there is more money involved” said one of the participants, “and not where there is a slum. All they want is Lanjam”.

As we proceeded with the presentation the women started to get more involved and everyone had something to contribute to the discussion. While they recognized that there was a need to improve existing toilets in the city they also expressed a need for more toilets in the city. “Toilets kandippa venum” they chorused. One of the women even recommended that we create an ad campaign for this issue just like Revathy in the Domex advertisement!

As we were wrapping up, a woman called out to us and said “When you mentioned that the presentation was about public toilets we felt quite uncomfortable and were unsure of what we were going to hear about. But we now realize that you have spoken about a very important issue… Next time we walk on a road we may look at a public toilet with a different lens”.

- Adya Shankar

I recently started working on an urban poverty scoping exercise with a representative from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As part of this project, I have had the opportunity to meet with many urban planners, government officials, academics and civil society workers all over the country. I have learned a great deal about the obstacles in providing basic services to the urban poor. The common woe amongst all stakeholders that I have spoken to remains the lack of capacity required to dispatch services in an effective manner. Thus, when I asked these stakeholders which area under poverty alleviation requires intervention, many pointed out that a focus on capacity-building could help make poverty reduction programs efficient and targeted to achieve more success in shorter periods of time.

The 74th Constitutional Amendment mandates the local government with the responsibility of urban poverty alleviation. However, many municipal governments have shown incompetence in utilizing funds appropriately. Mr. Ajay Suri, Regional Advisor for Cities Alliance, stressed that municipalities are starved for skilled urban planners, economists, statisticians, researchers, designers and architects to take on the role of urban development. While money is abundant, the technical assistance required to implement projects and disseminate funds are not available, due to which poverty alleviation programs, such as Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP, under JnNURM), do not always achieve their goals. A recent article in the Indian Express stated that The Intergrated Housing and Slum Development Program, which is another sub-mission under JnNURM, has utilized less that 50% of its allocated funds on projects. According to housing minister Kumari Selja, one of the reasons for under-utilization of funds was lack of capacity of local bodies to implement projects.

Over the past year, the GoI has established five new urban institutes in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgargh. These institutes are intended to be the training grounds for new generations of urban planners, research organizations, and consultancies that provide technical assistance to cities. Unfortunately, working for the municipal government is not looked upon as an attractive profession. Furthermore, organizations such as the National Institute of Urban Affairs struggle with retaining young professionals due to the diverse and attractive employment opportunities that they are presented with. There is dire need for experts in municipal governments, without whom no amount of money or schemes can fully achieve success.

Vaishnavi Narasimhan