Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Mobile toilets to improve sanitation

The `callous attitude' of a civic official has pained the `pain specialist'

PHOTOS: C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Dr. Prayaga M. Krishna seen with his novel device in the background. (Right) The mobile toilet mounted on an autorickshaw

We teach our children about the importance of personal hygiene and keeping the surroundings clean to keep diseases at bay and to prevent the outbreak of epidemics. But as they grow older, the future citizens are made to believe that it is the duty of the municipalities and corporations to keep the city clean and the citizens have no role in it.

Some of the civic officials are also fuelling such thoughts, driving good Samaritans to frustration.

Dr. Prayaga M. Krishna, a cancer specialist, who had worked in different countries abroad, was impressed by the low cost mobile toilet taxis in Brazil. Last year on a visit to Visakhapatnam he was moved by the plight of slum dwellers, especially women who were finding it difficult to attend to nature's call in the absence of individual toilets. The few public toilets were located at remote places and were ill maintained which was acting as a deterrent on the slum dwellers from visiting them.

`Mobile convenience'

He designed a mobile toilet and got it mounted on an auto chassis. The compact toilet has a bathroom, urinal and an Indian-type toilet seat. The toilet seat and bowl are made of stainless steel to prevent breakage during transit. The toilet is equipped with a 200-litre overhead water tank and a 200-litre tank below to collect the sewage.

All that one had to do after using the toilet is to press a button with the foot and water gushes out automatically and flushes the bowl clean.

A special valve has been provided which when turned can empty the sewage into a modern septic tank cleaner eliminating the need for use of a motor to suck the contents. Dr. Krishna had spent about Rs.60,000 in constructing the mobile toilet and wanted to donate it to the Municipal Corporation so that the latter could use it for the benefit of the poor in slums and other places. The Municipal Commissioner N. Srikanth was impressed by the model and directed his officer to make use of it to provide better sanitation in the slums.

The officer concerned, perhaps, thought it was below his dignity to adopt the suggestion of a `non-professional' and reportedly chose to dump it in the sewerage farm. Dr. Krishna went abroad and came back recently and wanted to know what was being done with the mobile toilet.

His inquiries had revealed that the mobile toilet was lying unused for the last nine months at the sewerage farm. When he approached the officer concerned, the latter coolly replied: "You can take it back". Dr. Krishna took the unit back home and is now planning to give it to some other organisation that can do justice to the project.

Toilet to the doorstep

The toilet can be taken to the doorstep of the slum dweller or stationed at the street corner. The collection tank has to be emptied after 70 visits. After that it can either be emptied with the help of modern septic tank cleaner or taken to a vacant wasteland and emptied into a pit at the turn of the valve.

Apart from improving sanitation in slums, the facility can provide employment to unemployed persons as auto drivers. A nominal fee of Re.1 per use would help in recovering the cost, which slum dwellers would give ungrudgingly.

The system can also be mounted on a pushcart and taken from place to place to reduce the operating costs to the bare minimum. The mobile toilets can also be stationed at shopping complexes, many of which do not have toilets, for use by shoppers and the general public. Panacea for health problems

Open defecation and unsanitary conditions are leading to the outbreak of viral fevers and other diseases. "It is found that the human papiloma virus which causes cervical cancer among women is more rampant among the economically backward sections. In the absence of privacy, the slum women are unable to ensure proper personal hygiene. This year scores of such cases have been reported at the Lions Cancer Hospital at Seethammadhara," says Dr. Krishna who has enrolled as a Cancer Pain Specialist at that hospital recently. The mobile toilets have been in use in several poor countries for a long time and are a success. A product of Andhra Medical College, Dr. Krishna did his post-graduation in Osmania University and further studies in the U.K. Seeing the good work being done by the Lions Cancer Hospital, he is offering free service at the hospital and has also secured funds for it through an acquaintance in the US.

In the evening of his life, Dr. Krishna wants to pay back something to the city which had contributed to his growth, but the `pain specialist' is pained by the callous attitude of the municipal corporation official.

B. MADHU GOPAL

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail