Narayanpet beautification: Washroom with wheels and spruced up toilets in public areas

The makeover is to beautify and also improve sanitisation facilities for women, says district collector Hari Chandana

Walls of public toilets in Narayanpet district have become a canvas for a group of artists led by Dasari Raghavender. In black, white and terracotta hues, a team of men draw simple patterns, images of horses and Warli art’s hour-glass figurines. At the district’s busy market areas, a mobile pink bus blinks in the glare of the sun. These are the She Toilets. Sporting bright exteriors and interiors, this new washroom on wheels. with four units run on biodegesters. also has a small teashop run by women. Elsewhere, sculptor Vipparthi Bheemraju is busy carving the bust of a woman with folded hands, to welcome visitors at the district’s Makthal mandal. All this is part of a new plan of Narayanpet 2.0, with a focus on beautification and sanitation facilities for women.

District Collector Hari Chandana Dasari informs that the makeover is part of Telangana government’s ‘Pattana Pragati’ programme to make the towns spic and span. “One way to keep a town clean is to have beautiful spots so that people enjoy the visuals and also do not spoil. We began with public toilets as the priority was to sensitise them and also pass social messages,” she says adding with pride, “Urban development minister KT Rama Rao has been pushing this programme across all municipalities and we have just taken a lead in it.”

Low-cost models

Work on washrooms began in March and so far 48 toilets have been constructed at bus stops, hospitals and market areas;some units are to be completed. Built on a low-cost model (at ₹15,000 per toilet, including painting work), each unit with 10 toilets was done in ₹1.5 lakh. The cylindrical exteriors of the toilets are made from concrete manhole rings (used in drainage works). Unlike the construction of regular public toilets that needs bricks, cement and curing, these precast rings can be easily fixed. With an underground pit, the rings are piled atop one another, and bound by layers of concrete mortar in between. “The construction needs only one person, so it is easy and can be done in two days,” adds Hari Chandana.

Hyderabad-based Art Exotica had given proposals for this art work on toilets. Says P Sandhya of the company, “We bought designs from young artists to promote and support them. When our proposals got accepted, we customised them and employed artists to finish the work.” Art Exotica has worked in Shilparamam, Sanjeevaiah park, near Ravindra Bharathi and is presently beautifying the Uppal median work. The washrooms come with different colours and door handles for men and women.

The Narayanpet town municipality has tied up with women’s self-help groups for cleaning. “Self-help groups have a strong base in rural areas and they’d maintain the toilets. But they are not active any more. The municipality pays ₹8000 to clean even where toilets are free to use. The pay and use ones are run by women and create employment for them.”

To ensure these washrooms remain functional and do not turn into mere dumps, Hari Chandana lists out a few measures. “The problem in bigger areas is monitoring. The agency starts off well but the maintenance slowly deteriorates. But when you have a model where people are involved, they will push us and take care of it. We are also linking a shop kind of model with the mobile toilet so that traders pay rent for the shop and run the business, so naturally it will be an easy responsibility to take care of.”

Mobile washroom

The idea of a mobile washroom came from Chirec Public School in Hyderabad, where one of their old school buses had been converted into a mobile restroom. Hari Chandana claims the bus in Narayanpet is one-of-its kind in the country to use biodigesters.

Done up with colourful interiors, the cost of each bus came up to only ₹10 lakh. The bus with four toilet units is parked at market spots during the day and returns to the municipal office at night. There are plans to start three more buses. ‘Women self-help groups that run a tea kiosk in it earn some revenue and also maintain the toilet.”

At first artist Bheemraju had created a structure with steel rods at Makthal to fill it up with a concrete frame. “The 13-feet high sculpture of a woman doing namaste welcomes visitors coming to Makthal tank bund,” he says. Besides Makthal, two sculptures are to come up at Kosgi and Narayanpet. While the work is going slow due to COVID-19, the Narayanpet work has to be stopped as artist Shivaramachary whose sculpture was to be installed at Narayanpet passed away recently.