CHENNAI: In a move to ensure safety for women, the city corporation has finally floated tenders to set up 150 ‘SHE’ toilets under the Nirbhaya Scheme.
The SHE toilets are women-only toilets installed in ‘safe zone clusters’ (SZC) and busy places earmarked by the city corporation through Geographic Information Mapping. The SZCs are vulnerable localities where women might find distress.
Though this project was under cold storage for more than a year now, officials said the delay was due to earmarking spaces and now it has been finalised.
‘‘This is the first phase and will be expanded to 500 toilets at a total cost of Rs. 27 crores next year in two phases. The tenders contract is for three years,’’ said a top official with Corporation’s works department.
The SHE toilets are part of an umbrella project undertaken by the Tamil Nadu government under Nirbhaya funds to promote safety for women in public places. Under this, women-only MTC buses, Amma Patrol cars for cops, surveillance cameras, street lights, mobile app are the other projects.
‘‘The idea is to make women feel safe and comfortable in using public toilets. The dedicated e-toilet for them in busy places may be a welcoming change,’’ said the official, adding that as a whole, it may change the perception of public toilets among women.
Some of the locations where these toilets are going to come up are near Central, Egmore Railway Stations and Parrys bus stand among other places which include schools, colleges, malls, slums and IT parks.
The women-only toilets are set to share similar features as the current e-toilets in the city.
‘‘Both are more or less similar in size and it will have auto-flush which is connected to a tank placed on the side or back with a capacity of 200 litres,’’ said the corporation official, adding that they will be functioning 24*7 and maintained in a hygienic way.
On the flip side, the e-toilets in the city has been a mega-failure. The city currently has 221 e-toilets and 138 rental toilets but most of them are dysfunctional and closed due to lack of maintenance.
During 2019 summer, water supply was scanty to these toilets resulting in neglect. Since then, the civic body has forgotten about the existing toilets and people started to urinate outside the e-toilets itself, making the space sully.
In some places like Royapuram, even garbage was dumped inside the unused e-toilets. With these existing challenges, it has to be seen how the civic body would maintain the women-only toilets.
When queried about the future of the existing e-toilets, officials did not have a plan yet. ‘‘We have to plan and think of replacing the existing toilets. However, for the new ones, we will put dedicated sanitary workers to maintain it,’’ the official added.