Public urinals in a bad shape, open urination rampant in city

Vijayawada: With open urination already a problem in the city, apathy on the part of VMC in maintaining public urinals is only compounding to the problem. Most public urinals in the city are in a bad shape and has no maintenance done by the civic body’s sanitation wing. Officials already fear that this will be reflected in the city’s Swachh Survekshan rank in 2020.

While the VMC declared Vijayawada open defecation free in 2016, it took initiatives to control open urination. In 2017, it painted around 10km of walls with sceneries and quotations to control open urination. However, this did not bring in much change. In 2019, again, the civic body identified around 100 open urination spots and installed 60 public urinal points made of plastic. Initially, rhe initiative received a huge response from the public.

However, with time, cleaning of the urinals was ignored and water supply was also stopped. Now, these urinals go completely unused and the public have gone back to open urination. “We avoid public urinals installed by the VMC. They stink and are filthy. Public urinal at Vijaya Talkies Bridge was damaged a month back and there has been no effort to recostruct it,” said K Narasimha, an Arundalpet resident.

People have been demanding that VMC cleans these urinals on a regular basis and provide water to these points. “Civic body must maintain hygiene at toilets and urinals. Using unhygienic toilets increases the risk of urinary tract infections. VMC should provide water at the urinals and clean them at regular intervals every day,” said city-based physician Dr Vattipalli Bhagyaraj.

Even the Tax Payers’ Association of Vijayawada have been asking the VMC to focus on maintaining the toilets which were set up spending crores of public money.

When asked about this, VMC commissioner Prasanna Venkatesh said that the civic body has focused on restoring public urinals and the process will be completed in a week’s time.