Delhi to get 50 luxury public toilets before Games

After getting a clearance from the Delhi high court, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is gearing up to construct 50 luxury pay-and-use public toilets in the capital before the Commonwealth Games, an official said on Wednesday.

"Initially, we planned to build 218 five-star toilets in the city, but with the legal hurdles being solved only in the second week of July, we have little time to build so many before the Games in October. So, we will be building 50 toilets,'' a senior MCD official.

The project for pay-and-use toilets was floated last September but was held up due to litigation. The cost of constructing one toilet block is estimated to be around Rs 1 crore.

On Tuesday, Justice R S Endlaw dismissed a petition by a businessman, from Greater Kailash-I, opposing the civic agency's move to acquire 1,200 square feet in N-block market for building air-conditioned toilets.

"Already work on these toilets with five-star comforts has started in a few places like Defence Colony and Lajpat Nagar market,'' the MCD official said.

"The state-of-the-art toilets will be better than those found in five-star hotels. The toilets will be air-conditioned and the first floor of the toilet will have coffee shops and flower shops,'' the official said.

According to the MCD official, tenders have already been floated and many companies have come forward to open shops on the first floor of the luxury toilets. Sanitation in the toilets will be taken care of by the shop owners.

"The pay-and-use toilet will collect a meagre amount of Rs 1 or Rs 2 from the users. Our aim is to provide better facilities to public, including foreign visitors who would come during the Games,'' he added.

The civic agency has already identified certain areas for opening these toilets and these include Gulmohar Park, M-Block market, GK-I, PVR Saket, Ambavata Complex, Mehrauli, Green Park Market, Chirag Delhi, Subzi Mandi, Kotla Mubarakpur, Nehru Enclave, Andrews Ganj, Paschim Vihar, Janakpuri, Taj Enclave Road, Paharganj, R K Puram, South Extension Part-I, Ganesh Nagar and Delhi University.