Lok Sabha Question No. 3653 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-12-07
Subject: Audit of Toilets
Ministry: URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Asked by: BIDYUT BARAN MAHATO, VIJAY KUMAR S.R., SUSHMITA DEV, YOGI ADITYANATH, SUNIL BALIRAM GAIKWAD, SUDHEER GUPTA, SHIVAJI ADHALRAO PATIL, JYOTIRADITYA MADHAVRAO SCINDIA, KUNWAR HARIBANSH SINGH, RANJANBEN BHATT

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT

## LOK SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3653

TO BE ANSWERED ON DECEMBER 07, 2016

## AUDIT OF TOILETS

No. 3653

SHRI BIDYUT BARAN MAHATO:

SHRI S.R. VIJAYAKUMAR:

KUMARI SUSHMITA DEV:

SHRI YOGI ADITYA NATH:

DR. SUNIL BALIRAM GAIKWAD:

SHRI SUDHEER GUPTA:

SHRI ADHALRAO PATIL SHIVAJIRAO:

SHRI JYOTIRADITYA M. SCINDIA:

KUNWAR HARIBANSH SINGH:

SHRIMATI RANJANBEN BHATT:

## Will the Minister of URBAN DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:

- (a) whether a number of lapses have been found in the implementation  of  the  Swachh  Bharat  Mission  (SBM)  and  if  so,  the details thereof and the reasons therefor along with action taken/being
- taken in this regard;
- (b) whether  the  Government  has  recently  requested  all  the  State and city Governments to undertake extensive audit of toilets in urban
- areas to ensure that they are functional and fully used;
- (c) if  so,  whether  the  extensive  audit  has  been  conducted  by  the State and city Governments and if so, whether deficiencies have been noticed by the Government including non-availability of water in the toilets;
- (d) if so, the details thereof and the corrective measures taken/being taken by the Government to remove the deficiencies and proper use of toilets; and

Contd….2

- (e) whether  the  Government  proposes  to  launch  'Google  Toilet Locator' for the benefit of the people of National Capital Region and if so,  the  details  thereof  and  the  time  by  which  it  is  likely  to  be launched?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT (RAO INDERJIT SINGH)

- (a): No, Madam.
- (b)  to  (d):  The  auditing  of  toilets  in  urban  areas  is  done  in  various ways. In order to ensure the maintenance and upkeep of the toilets, the liability of maintenance/ upkeep of the toilets has been placed on the  agencies,  as  integral  part  of  the  contract  awarded  for  their construction.  Further,  under  the  annual  survey  of  cities,  'Swachh Survekshan',  the  sanitation  and  solid  waste  management  status  of designated cities are assessed and evaluated along various parameters,  including  construction,  maintenance  and  up-keep  of toilets, for which 15% weightage is given. The maintenance of toilets is  also  audited  by  the  'Swachhata  App',  a  mobile  application  on Android  and  iOS  launched  by  the  Ministry  of  Urban  Development (MoUD) for addressing complaints related to civic issues. Anyone can download  the  app  and  file  complaints  by  clicking  and  posting  the picture of poor maintenance of toilets. The complaint gets automatically  forwarded  to  the  concerned  municipal  authority,  who has fixed timeframe for redressing different categories of complaints received  through  the  app.  Finally,  to  enable  citizens  to  locate  the nearest available toilet, MoUD will launch a mobile application ('app') called  the  'Swachh  Bharat  Toilet  Locator  (SBTL)  during  this  month which will provide urban citizens the service of locating toilets in their neighbourhood or vicinity. The app offers two types of functionalities: an  Administrator  version,  which  provides  access  to  Urban  Local Bodies (ULBs) of the respective cities to add toilets to the app as well as verify them, and a Citizen version, which provides toilet locations to  urban  users  and  enabled  them  to  submit  feedback  after  use  of these toilets. The app also provides for additional information such as quality rating, facilities available, free or paid usage, and navigation directions, however, the basic purpose of the app is directed towards locating public access toilets.

Contd…3

(e):  Further  to  this,  it  was  envisaged  that  if  the  data  can  be  made available on a publically available online maps platform, it will provide ease of access to citizens. To facilitate this, MoUD has partnered with Google to provide location of toilets on Google Maps Platform and also has  collated  community  and  public  toilet  data  in  5  cities  of  NCR (Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Noida) and 2 cities from MP (Indore and Bhopal). It is expected that the processing and verification  of  the  data  by  the  technical  team  of  Google  will  be complete by mid of December 2016 and the initiative can be made live for the use of citizens after that.

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