One toilet for 1,000 people during Kumbh

Hindus, please note that this government provides Haj houses for Haj pilgrims every year; but it can’t even provide proper basic facilities for Hindus at events like Kumbh Mela. To change this situation, Hindus should unite to establish Hindu Rashtra ! – Editor, HJS website

Nashik : After years of planning and countless meetings and site visits, the extensive Kumbh mela management plan has slipped on a basic facility – toilets. For the estimated one crore pilgrims expected during the three Shahi Snans, one scheduled in August-end and two in September, there will be just one toilet per 1,000 people.

Hectic steps are being proposed now, with less than three weeks to go for the surge in pilgrim numbers for the first of the three Shahi Snans. The district health officer has asked for more toilets to be constructed, after he recently visited Jagannath, Puri, along with a team of officials from the district collectorate and realized toilet numbers back home in Nashik were not good enough. The team is currently in Pushkar to study the facilities there.

“We will propose for more toilets to be made available during the Kumbh period as the toilets that are now available will not be sufficient for the floating population,” said a district collectorate official.

There are 11,232 toilets, including 522 newly constructed facilities. In addition, officials have put up 710 mobile toilets and also 10,000 temporary toilets in Sadhugram. The three Shahi Snans will attract one crore pilgrims.

But civic officials see no reason for concern. They say they have taken into account the floating population during the Kumbh Mela, based on which each toilet will be used by 150 to 200 people per day. They said they were prepared to provide good sanitation facility to pilgrims and that they had planned for sulabh as well as mobile toilets.

“Besides, pilgrims will also be using toilets in public places. There is no need for more toilets even if we consider 1,000 people using one toilet during the three main days of the Kumbh mela. Only 150-200 people would be using one toilet per day. We have enough sanitary employees to clean the toilets,” said an NMC official.

Vijay Dekate, NMC health officer, said, “We have around 9,000 mobile toilets that will be stationed at ghats, on the routes that devotees will devotees will take, at Ramkund and Tapovan.”

It’s a flawed plan, points out Firdaus Kapadia, who heads the WINS toilet project for schools, Rotary Club. “For one crore floating population, 75,000 toilets are needed,” he says.

Source : The Times of India