Centre plans to make quarter of public washrooms in cities 'Aspirational toilets'

The Centre is planning to make a quarter of public restrooms in cities that will have high-end features like luxurious bath cubicles, touchless flushing, breast-feeding rooms, and automatic sanitary napkin incinerators, and will be visible on Google Maps as ‘Aspirational Toilets,’ a report in The Hindu said.

According to the report, the Centre has sent a directive to states that they need to make sure that henceforth 25 per cent of public toilet seats added in any city or urban unit are ‘aspirational toilets’.

The places this plan will focus on include well-known cities as well as tourism and religious hotspots. High-traffic areas, including well-known marketplaces, railway stations, interstate bus depots, and national highways, would be allotted priority in such hotspots. The goal is to make sure that these public restrooms are present in locations where people are likely to spend longer than three to four hours at a time.

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The bathrooms must be free of stains and graffiti, have low-height toilets and sinks for kids, be surrounded by well-kept patches of green, have readily available hand dryers, paper napkins and have vending machines for sanitary napkins, according to guidelines given to the states.

According to the report, the government is also planning to have libraries, cafes, and shopping complexes attached to these restrooms in order to raise funds for their maintenance and upkeep. In order to make these restrooms self-sustaining, the government is also contemplating one of the economic models where these toilets will be attached to other public services like restaurants, shopping centres, libraries, movie theatres, or even chemist stores.

However, experts think that extensive planning is necessary before such projects hit the floor. “Before beginning any such project, a proper study has to be done on the location and the way they will be maintained,” Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh International, told The Hindu. He also said that a good business model to explore would be cross-subsidising the maintenance of these toilets across locations.

According to the report, the government is planning to bring aboard startups which will be building these restrooms across the country. As of now, 75 companies have been shortlisted, out of which 30 proposals have been finalised. The pilot project will be rolled out by October 2024, the sources told The Hindu.

The aspirational toilets scheme was launched in September 2022 as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, with an aim to help make cities open and defecation free.