Unhappy with the choice of locations, residents on Wednesday questioned the Noida authority’s decision to make public toilets at various locations. The residents lividly explained that these toilets are proposed on footpaths and green areas where people commute and spend their time.
Complaining about the foul smell which will originate from these toilets, residents said that Noida authority has messed up big time as they did not plan properly and consult them before going ahead with it.
"The authority is making the toilets on footpaths and green area. In future, residents will have to deal with the foul smell when they will stand or pass from those areas," said residents.
Abhay Pandey, a resident of Homes 121 told that the Noida Authority was making the toilet on the cycle track in Sector-121. “But when he talked to a senior official of Noida Authority, the construction work was stopped. The official also promised to shift the location of the toilet,” he added.
Pandey also said that one more toilet is being constructed on the green belt of the Sector-122 and after his intervention authority shifted it around 10 meters away towards the pathway but that is also not an ideal location.
Amit Gupta, a resident of Prateek Wisteria said that a toilet is being constructed near the Spectrum Metro, a mall in Sector-75, and that place was selected for making left-cut on the road connecting the internal road with the main road.
"Before building these toilets, officials did not plan and they are making these toilets without any survey. They should take the help of the project engineer, residents of the sector as their views are very important. They will tell about their future problems due to these toilets,” Gupta said.
SC Mishra, a senior project engineer of Noida Authority told City Spidey that it was decided to build 84 toilets at different places in the city and different private firm invested the money in the construction of these toilets on a build operate transfer (BOT) basis.
“The agency will recover this amount by using the space for advertising at the FOB for 10 years and agency will use 250 sqft area of the toilet for the advertisement,” said Mishra.
“The private agency will operate and maintain these toilets. Once the time period is over, the authority will receive advertising rights on the space available around the toilets,” he added.
These private firms will give Rs 11,000 per month for one toilet and if we calculate the total amount coming from 84 toilets then it will be Rs 9,24,000. The deadline to complete the construction work of these toilets is 31 July.
"Before making these toilets, the authority will be doing a survey regarding the needs of toilets and if the residents are not happy with the location of the toilets then we will shift the location by 50 to 100 metre,” Mishra said.
Mishra also said that he got a lot of complaints from the residents to change the location and we have immediately stopped the construction work. He said that his team will visit the place and verify the complaint. He added that if they find the complaint right then they will change the location.
According to residents, the Noida authority is making 84 public toilets to generate a good amount of revenue and that's why they are in hurry to build these toilets.
