Transforming City Toilets into Smart Amenities Centres

The Smart Public Amenities Centre involves financial and social engineering to solve the two key issues of Public Toilet Utilities (PTU’s) which are (a) financial sustainability and (b) operational sustainability, and transforms the PTU’s to Smart Public Amenities Centre at no cost to the municipal corporation.

It is inconceivable to build smart cities without having proper Public Toilet Utilities (PTU’s). However, PTU’s face the challenge that their annual operating costs is roughly the same as the initial capital cost. Therefore PTU’s tend to be ill-managed and dirty. In order to solve the issue of finances, some cities use the front wall of the PTU for advertisement revenues and force the users to enter the toilet from the rear side. This leads to safety issue for women as the rear side is not visible to general public, thus exposing the women to safety issues from anti-social elements. Moreover, the odour, the unhygienic conditions of the PTU and the lurking anti-social elements dither the general public from using the PTU’s. In addition, many of the PTU’s are used for anti-social activities at night and thus pose a challenge to the vibrancy of the city. Some municipalities try to solve this problem by making PTU’s chargeable – this ensures that there is revenue coming in to support the PTU and also ensures that a private party can be brought in to maintain the toilet. Unfortunately, in the Indian conditions, many people tend to use the walls as soon as there is a charge on the PTU, thus defeating the purpose of a PTU.

Statistics indicate that mere construction of Public Toilet Units and Community toilets does not address the core issues. There are three models of toilet construction undertaken in urban local bodies (ULBs) in India – toilets built and operated with government finances; toilets built and operated by NGOs, often for a lease period of 30 years; and toilets built and operated under the PPP model, where the private builder is allowed to operate a toilet for a limited period of five to 10 years and given advertisement rights for that period.

Studies indicate that in all the above models of public toilets, poor hygienic conditions within and around the toilets is a deterrent to the use of public toilets. The hygiene standards around the toilets deteriorate with time after their construction due to lack of operation and maintenance. The lack of access to sanitation infrastructure is not only a matter of class, but also a matter of gender. Poor design of the public toilets reduces the access for women, wherein safety becomes an issue of key concern for female users. In summary, Public Toilet Utilities (PTU’s) have two key challenges – (a) Financial sustainability and (b) Operational sustainability.

Smart Public Amenities Centre

The Smart Public Amenities Centre involves financial and social engineering to solve the two key issues of Public Toilet Utilities (PTU’s) which are (a) financial sustainability and (b) operational sustainability, and transforms the PTU’s to Smart Public Amenities Centre at no cost to the municipal corporation. A Smart Public Amenities Centre (SPAC) takes away all financial burden of the PTU from the municipality and uses Value Capture Economics to build, operate and maintain the Smart Public Amenities Centre. For overcoming the challenge of operational sustainability, Smart Public Amenities Centre creates a vibrant mini-ecosystem of stakeholders around the Smart Public Amenities Centre (SPAC) that puts pressure on all stakeholder in the ecosystem to ensure that the SPAC is well maintained, and is odour-free and hygienic. This requires transformation of the public toilets and community toilets into Smart Public Amenities Centres. The SPAC consists of a set of services in addition to the PTU. . Each Smart Public Amenities Centre consists of toilets for men, women and the differently abled. One floor of the SPAC is used to deliver Citizen Services by Municipality (as Citizen Facilitation Centre). The SPAC has Solar panels installed at the rooftop for powering the components of these Smart Public Amenities Centres. The set of services within the SPAC ensures vibrancy and security to the citizens and solves the two issues of (a) financial sustainability and (b) operational sustainability. Utilizing the concept of value capture economics, (VCE), the smart amenity centres would be funded, constructed, operated, and maintained by the private sector on land provided by the urban local bodies (ULBs). As a result of the envisaged ecosystem, the ULB would be unshackled of the annual operation and maintenance cost of the public toilets, thereby presenting a win-win situation for the ULB and help reduce the pressure on urban public expenditure.