Defecation-free Delhi: NDMC, Railways plan 240 toilets along Ring Rail

Being the core of India's political hub, New Delhi - housing Parliament, several foreign embassies, ministers and bureaucrats - is largely open defecation-free, it is the notorious rail line that poses an issue.

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NGOs will be hired to counsel slum dwellers on usage of toilets instead of railway lines.
NGOs will be hired to counsel slum dwellers on usage of toilets instead of railway lines.

In Short

  • Project worth Rs 1 crore launched to set up at least 240 latrine units
  • The units will be placed along the 6 km-long Delhi Ring Railway.

Believe it or not, some of the most 'upmarket' areas of Delhi also suffer from an open-defecation problem. However, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the richest municipality in Asia, has taken it up as a challenge to get rid of the stinking malaise.

A project worth Rs 1 crore has been launched to set up at least 240 latrine units along the 6 km-long Delhi Ring Railway that runs within the NDMC's territories.

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RAIL LINE POSES ISSUE

Being the core of India's political hub, New Delhi - housing Parliament, several foreign embassies, ministers and bureaucrats - is largely open defecation-free, it is the notorious rail line that poses an issue.

It cuts through posh areas like New Moti Bagh, Lodhi Colony and Sarojini Nagar. An estimated 3,000 residents of jhuggi-jhopri (JJ) cluster Sanjay Camp use the New Moti Bagh line to defecate.

Slum-dwellers of Sewa Nagar and New Khanna Market make their regular morning visits to the Lodhi Colony track. Further, inhabitants of the shanties behind Delhi Flying Club make use of the Sarojini Nagar line.

An agreement has already been reached with the Indian Railways. Work is in progress and will be finished by August, said an official.

NDMC is following in the footsteps of PM Narendra Modi's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign). Besides, it is also among the country's first 20 cities selected by Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) for the 'Smart Cities Mission.'

NDMC A WINNER IN SWACHH BHARAT

Last year, the NDMC area emerged 16th in the Swachh Bharat Ranking out of 476 Indian urban municipalities, in which Mysuru (Karnataka) topped.

It is also one of the 400 cities - including those in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Haryana - to have set an ambitious goal of turning open defecation-free (ODF) by December 2016. This pledge was made at a 'National Workshop on Sanitation' inaugurated by the MoUD Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu, in April this year.

A senior NDMC official told Mail Today, "While we do not suffer a chronic open-defecation problem, the railway line is an irritant. We already have 273 public toilets, including community toilets, in the entire NDMC area. As per the Census of India, 2011, at least 20 per cent of our population use it. Still, the issue along the Delhi Ring Railway line remains. We have decided to install 80 Water Closet Sets (WCs), Public Toilet Units (PTUs) and Community Toilet Units (CTUs) all along the track."