Gods do more than bless the humans in Kolkata, they also keep the city’s pavements clean.
Stretches along multiple roads have been plastered with images of gods to prevent men from urinating there. The ploy is not new. Earlier, private properties used it. Now, even some councillors of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) are finding it effective in stopping people from urinating in public.
On the Chetla bridge, along Hazra Road, near Gariahat — images of gods have been put up to stop the nuisance and the results have been instant. In at least one place, images of freedom fighters and other famous personalities have been put up, too.
“This was first done on the Chetla bridge. People used to urinate on the walls. Repeated pleas over the years did not yield any results. It was then that the idea to decorate the stretch with images of gods came up,” said a senior official of the KMC.
Local councillor (Ward 83) Probir Chakraborty said it was impossible to sit inside a car or a bus when it stopped at the traffic signal because of the stink.
“We decided to put up pictures of all the 51 peeths of Kali. There has been no urination on the walls since the pictures were put up. It cost me about Rs 1 lakh but the results made everyone happy,” he said.
About 10 days ago, a panel with images of gods and goddesses — Lakshmi, Saraswati, Bajrangbali, Vishwakarma, Jagannath, Radha-Krishna, Kali and Ganesh, among others — was put up on two stretches of Hazra Road, near the University Law College.
Saurav Basu, councillor of Ward 86 of the KMC, decided to use the same ploy here.
“I first tried this ploy as an experiment elsewhere in my ward. When that worked, I did the same thing on Hazra Road. I also put up some lights so the images are visible at night, lest someone urinate without realising there are images of gods and goddesses,” said Basu.
Basu said he used borough funds of the KMC for the work. Decoration of each stretch costs a little less than Rs 1 lakh.
People used to urinate as well as throw waste on these two stretches of Hazra Road. While urination has stopped, throwing waste continues, albeit a few metres away from the panels.
“Some habits do not go away easily. Some people are still throwing waste on the road. They throw it after the waste cleaners of the KMC complete their work in the morning,” said Narendra Kumar Saluja, who runs a grocery nearby.
Outside Muralidhar Girls College, near Gariahat, images of famous personalities from Bengal — Tagore, Vidyasagar and Jagadis Chandra Bose, among others — were put up some months ago.
Urinating in public is as much a behavioural problem as the result of lack of access to clean toilets, said KMC officials as well as members of NGOs managing public toilets.
Some of the spots on a road when people urinate are near public toilets. One such stretch on Hazra Road is next to a pay-and-use toilet complex.
Just like public urination, the lack of clean public urinals is a problem the city faces.
Vijay Kumar Jha, Bengal coordinator for Sulabh International, which runs many public toilets, said if toilets were not clean, people would not use them. “Besides, some of the agencies that run public toilets charge more than what they should, and that drives away many poor people from these facilities,” he said.
Daily wage earners, porters, hawkers, car parking attendants, people engaged in painting homes and public infrastructure and homeless people are among those who need clean public toilets at a minimal price or for free.
Swapan Samaddar, mayoral council member in charge of the bustee department of the KMC, said there are about 418 pay-and-use toilets in Kolkata. There are many free urinals, too. “There was an issue of cleanliness, but we are now trying to address it. Our officers visit the pay-and-use toilets to check if they are clean and well-maintained. The KMC is the custodian of the pay-and-use toilets but they are run by agencies (hired by the civic body),” he said.
Samaddar admitted there is a scope to build more toilets. “People who come to Kolkata every day for work should have access to clean toilets. We are willing to build more toilets but land availability is a challenge,” he said.