Mumbai News: Bio-Toilet Plan For Beaches Shelved, Now Only Mobile Toilets

Mumbai: After stiff resistance to the plan of installing prefabricated public bio-toilets on city’s beaches, the BMC has now decided to set up simple, mobile toilets for men, women and specially-abled persons. The estimated cost of the project is around Rs3.42 crore for which the civic body invited a tender on Friday for installation, operation and maintenance. 

A total of 24 toilets will be installed at Girgaon, Dadar-Mahim, Juhu, Versova, Madh-Marve and Manori-Gorai, Danapani, among other beaches. Each unit will have seven toilet seats and will have solar panels, electricity, water tankers and round the clock maintenance staff. 

Last year's project of pre-fabricated bio-toilets was terminated mid-way

A civic official said that last year they installed pre-fabricated bio-toilets on an experimental basis on a few beaches. However, the project wasn’t welcomed by local people and a few politicians. This resulted in terminating the contract mid-way. The official said that mobile toilets can be moved around in case of opposition. “There will be a lower platform toilet for use by senior citizens and specially able visitors,” the official added.

The BMC has planned to increase the number of community and public toilets, especially in slums and high footfall areas. Thousands of citizens and tourists can be spotted on beaches in the city daily. There are mobile toilets in a few places but don’t work for long due to poor maintenance. A structural audit of public toilets over 30 years old was conducted in 2018. There are 8,500 public toilets in the city. The BMC had recently invited a tender for the construction of 14,000 toilet seats under Lot 12, with a provision of Rs394 crore.