BANGALORE: Everyone would like a gift for the new year including the Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha who are demanding 15000 new toilets for the city from the government in 2012. Addressing a press conference on the January 1, party president Vatal Nagaraj stated that without proper toilet facilities in the city there really was no reason to celebrate. “People were busy partying for the new year but did not take a moment to worry about the alarming lack of toilets in our city and state,” said Nagaraj.“It is the common person who roams around the city and need toilets, not important people like the Governor, Chief Minister and Judges as they have facilities of their own,” said Nagaraj. He added that the situation was worse for women as they had no clean toilets to use and cannot use the streets like men. “This pain is being borne by the entire nation and particularly the women, no one seems to be worried about them,” he said.He further stated, “These are people who contribute to tax and other cess charged on them, they are still not given enough facilities for the most basic of needs.” He alleged that toilets in Lalbagh and Cubbon Park were non functional and demanded immediate attention of the government into the issue.Bangalore currently has 3 kinds of pay and use toilets maintained. They are: Sulabh International, BBMP and the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF). 93 ‘Nirmala’ toilets have been funded by Infosys and are supposed to be maintained by the BBMP and BATF. But the reality is quite different as many toilets remained locked or water lines disconnected due to non payment of bills. There are also issues with irregularities in the fees that one has to pay to use these toilets. Besides, most of the public toilets are dirty and not well maintained.Vatal had earlier held a protest in May of last year in which he had stated the same demands. He was upset with the fact that the matter was taken very lightly. KCVP is demanding the government to install 1 lakh toilets all over the state and that each village be given a minimum of 5 toilets. “National and State Highways must have toilets every 5 km, this is the bare minimum,” he added.
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