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Article: #SwachhBharatAbhiyan (SBA) – Include existing Public Toilets in SBA

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done well by wielding the broom to clean a road and its surroundings, thereby, burnishing the lost grandeur of ‘dignity of labour.’ He has also formed a formidable team of star citizens, who have given impetus to the campaign launched in around 4041 statutory towns. Where in you find cine stars, sports persons, social activists, industrialists, professionals and even politicians, psyched out. Icons like Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Ambani, Kamal Hassan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shashi Tharoor and many other distinguished personalities have graced the campaign, by lending both, social and glamour weight.

So with all of this, the speed and velocity of the campaign looks set to deliver the goods. However, the priorities within this need to be tweaked, mainly to prioritize the initial tranches. Where, I have some pointed and granular suggestions to make, that oozes right out of my firsthand experience. Create as many Public toilets as possible, in the shortest possible time and also include the existing ones in the campaign. Perhaps, this suggestion of mine may give the whole campaign a better fillip in converting the movement into a mass movement with the least of resistance. Arising, more out of the immediate necessity of the deprived public, in this case the general public; because of the limited, shabby and poor infrastructure that throws the spanner in the development of India.

For it was just, yesterday when I was driving down the crowded market area on Hill Road in Bandra, is when I felt like relieving myself. I stopped the car, got off and started looking for a public urinal. Keeping strictly in mind the Prime Minister’s message of Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, and trying to observe it to my heart’s content.

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I must have spent about half-an-hour in the crowded market area, in which time I must have covered more than a kilometer but I still could not find a public toilet. Is when I saw the logo of a petrol pump to my heart’s delight, as we all know have toilets. ‘Wow- what a relief’ I said to myself. And this got me thinking.

If this is the condition of Mumbai, one of the biggest metropolis of India what about other cities? With a burgeoning population, Mumbai has a deficit of at least 47,000 toilet seats, and the cost of constructing one toilet is INR 150,000, say authorities, so we can imagine the cost involved. This shortage in 2001 was a whooping 125,000 toilet seats when the Brihan Mumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC) had conducted its first survey on the sanitation needs for the country’s commercial population. Going by 2001 figures, the ratio of toilets versus population comes to a whopping 1: 50 or 3,000 people using it daily in Mumbai.

MUST COMPLIMENT THE OIL COMPANIES

After relieving myself, I sincerely blessed the oil companies that thought of customer convenience, by having toilets in all their retail outlets which Indian Railways couldn’t provide in all platforms. Further, I thought this is a big opportunity to include these readily available toilets, as part of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan as pay and use toilets to catapult the campaign exponentially.

Today, India has about 45,000 filling stations more than Canada or UK as of March 2012, and most are with the facility of a toilet. If these toilets are made to join the SBA on a pay and use basis we can have a sudden flurry of toilets and that will certainly help the SBA.

For the Government to make public toilets, every 1-2 km, in crowded market areas along the road side may be a gigantic and close to a non doable task, so here is the way forward. Today, the immediate pressing need for the Public at large is a convenient network of clean toilets spaced around close proximity and concomitant is the wielding of broom to keep it clean. While it may be possible to construct new toilets on highways and open roads but may be extremely difficult in the already cramped and crowded market areas and this is where these toilets can come in handy

CAMPAIGNS CAN CHANGE REALITIES

Even though Government of India has transcribed incentives for building public toilets. All is not achieved merely by announcing incentives on paper alone, as it requires mindsets to change–that running a public toilet too, is a respectable venture; something like Sulabh Shauchalaya.

And so, India needs a renewed and intense campaign to promote public toilets as a doable business by respectable Individuals, Unemployed Youth, Business Houses, Societies, Builders, NGOs, SMEs, Hospitality Industry and under Corporate Social Responsibility.

Government should promote people having genuine intent of doing this noble task, and who have spare Land on which Private – Public Toilets could be constructed, or even existing toilets that could be utilized at prime and vantage locations as pay and use toilets.

The building bylaws should be tweaked to incentivise for mass proliferation of such public toilets and also sops in the form of rebate in property tax or any other, are a few boons that should be considered by the Government, if possible.

Running public toilets could be ticked at par with running hospitals as both reduce human suffering. Modi Government could further do well in bringing about this social change. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in fact has orated in one of his speeches abroad that he is currently busy in construction of Public toilets.

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#50 SECONDS OF #DEATHLY #PANIC

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By Kamlesh Tripathi

 

Death! I’ll’ tell you how she looks. I saw her from close quarters; only yesterday, while returning from office. She looked like a terrifying combination of a battered vehicle with a soiled number plate and a ghostly appearing driver who vanished into thin air in a flash of a second. And, it all happened on 21st November while returning from office.

I had just crossed Noida Golf club and was approaching the next traffic light signal on the roundabout of the Metro Station where there was a long queue of traffic waiting to cross. Moving slowly, by now I was as under the Metro station building and on the extreme right lane, inching along the high road divider, so high that while being seated in the car you could not see the traffic on the other side of the road. I was at peace as the traffic was disciplined, enjoying music; and relaxing in the company of fellow cars around, mostly returning from a hard day’s of work. Ahead, of me was a silver coloured Maruti Zen. The traffic light had gone green again, is when I realized I was about two hundred feet from it, and since I was still quite behind, I knew my time to move the car will only come by the time the light goes red again.

And, rightly so the cars ahead of me started moving only when the traffic light had turned red covering the empty road left by the cars ahead of them. I also rolled my car and stopped close to the roundabout. From where conveniently I would have crossed over in the next green light. I guess I was now just about forty or fifty feet away from the traffic light at the roundabout. To my right, continued the road divider with its fancy collection of green plants giving that fresh smell and adding to the beauty of the boulevard that ended after about twenty feet where it approached the roundabout. It wasn’t dark near the roundabout as the street lights were well lit.

A couple of seconds must have passed, is when I saw the rear lights of the Zen ahead of me flash, with that typical sound of a car being locked by the electronic remote switch. I then saw a skinny man, of medium height, perhaps the driver of that car in chappals, wearing dark coloured trousers, a half sweater getting out of it and walking away. And, very soon he reached the end of the road divider, where it ended at the roundabout and disappeared. I wondered where and why?

That gave me an uncomfortable feeling when it suddenly dawned in me, where has he gone? Why has he locked the car? And what is inside the car? Remembering the electronic remote switch that he had flaunted. Hope this is not a car bomb. I asked myself in panic, just when the traffic display read forty two seconds, to go.

The fright in me had set in. There was a car right behind me, so I couldn’t have inched backward, nor I could have gone forward. I imagined, what if this junk explodes? It will take me head on. There will be no chance of a survival. And no one knows where this bloody fellow has gone? All this must have happened in just about fifteen seconds.

Ahead of the Zen was a Mahindra Scorpio and on the left of it was the recently launched Tata Zest in its sexy blue colour which I still remember. Behind me it appeared was a Maruti Alto and to my immediate left an Innova where a guy was merrily talking on his mobile.

They say the fastest thing on earth is your mind. That had begun to sound in low decibels, as if my death-knell by a locally devised Molotov cocktail placed in a car. But the other part of my mind had suddenly started moving in top gear with my report card. In a flash it displayed things, that were undone, badly done and also successfully done in my life. It had also opened my conscience, my can of worms. Who all I had cheated and who all had cheated me; and with who all I was not fair and who all were not fair to me.

I remembered all my friends, including my girl friends. Some, unfamiliar voices reminded me, how I had hurt my Parents. Then suddenly a husky voice probably the voice of death said, ‘you have not made your will. Not explained your property papers to your wife, nor to your son, nor even to your daughter-in-law. And where have you kept your insurance papers, will they be able to find it; and what about the passwords, for if you die here in this blast your passwords might also die along with you in the computer, and what about your spiritual agenda and visits to various temples that you always wanted to carry out. All that will now have to be done in your next life provided you’re born as a human being.’ I could feebly make out, all these deadly voices were coming from that God forsaken Zen. When, suddenly I felt the flash was over. But the bomb was still alive and ticking. I suddenly missed my family.

The bright screen of the traffic light now read twenty seconds, to go. It was now or never. I quickly gathered myself, picked my phone, office bag, and moved out of the car and started walking in the reverse direction of the car when the guy sitting in the Alto behind my car said,

‘Where are you going sir, the signal will be green soon. Heeding to his advice I turned around to look at the signal in extreme fear, is when I also saw the driver of the Zen walking towards his car adjusting the fork of his pants and what lay beneath. I asked in some dismay.

‘Where did you go?’

He smiled and raised his little finger. But I had no expressions to return.

I sat in the car and slowly moved behind the Zen. There were no traffic cops there, to whom I could have narrated this episode. For them to be cautious and on the prowl about any such planned attacks by terrorists, as traffic signals were a vulnerable point.

That day I also realized the importance of ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan’ of Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi. And, just how to relieve oneself, one can commit such idiosyncrasies; and the urgent need to construct Public loos along roadside.

Life is so weird for when I was seeing death staring at me. At only a distance of ten feet the other person in the Innova was giggling and speaking on his mobile. Perhaps, these very thin lines can only be managed by Almighty alone. And more importantly,

I am now preparing my will on fast track, and having a hard look at my checkered report card.

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