The Delhi Commission for Women has summoned the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board officials over the pathetic condition of toilets managed by them. DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal along with two other panel members inspected certain toilets with a team of counsellors and local residents on Wednesday.

At the MCD toilet at Sanjay Colony Jhuggi in Gokul Puri, the panel members observed that there was no caretaker present at the toilet and human excreta was lying all around inside as well as outside the toilet in the building complex, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) said.

There was overflowing excreta everywhere on the floor with thousands of flies swarming over it. Evidently, due to the unhygienic condition of the toilets, several women and girls are being forced to defecate in the open. The smell in the complex was also extremely nauseating, it said.

The residents of the area informed the Commission that despite repeated complaints, no action was taken to clean the toilet complex which has become a source of disease and nuisance in the locality. They also submitted that anti-social elements gather near the toilet at night which further renders the area unsafe for women and girls.

The panel also found there were no safai karamcharis at the toilet complexes.

The Commission ensured that the toilet was cleaned on the spot. In a nearby toilet of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), the panel observed that the male caretaker was inside the female toilet area even as most of the toilets did not have doors, thus forcing the women and girls to openly defecate.

The panel visited toilets in Kalyanpuri and Trilokpuri area of Delhi and found the toilet complexes there also in a pathetic condition, the DCW said.

There was no provision for light in the female toilet area, rendering the complex further unsafe for the use of women and children, the panel noted.

The women rights body also found that individual toilets did not have any provisions for tap or water supply. There was an open pit in the toilet complex where dirty water was collected which was used by the women and children in the toilets for cleaning purpose.

The DCW has summoned senior MCD and DUSIB officials to fix their accountability as well as that of those responsible for the absolutely filthy and unsafe conditions in public toilets.

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