Women face the brunt of the problem. Municipality toilets clog up as often as once a week, are poorly maintained and are unusable at night because there is no electricity. They are also infested with drunks or drug addicts. Asked what she did before the toilet in her area was built, Dharavi's Sevanti Salunkhe says simply: "I would wait for sunset." Today, post a Rs 40 crore World Bank loan to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and direct involvement of the users, a family could spend between Rs 10 and Rs 30 a month to use a clean toilet.
Channel wars are played out as men stand in queue at television toilets, others attend English or computer classes, and children are learning to use their special seats. People are beginning to enjoy living without the stink from open defecation and without the illnesses that stemmed from it.
Of course, the World Bank's policy of making the poor pay for basic services has often raised hackles. But the choice is between toilets being free but unavailable, and available for a small fee. "Now people know they can get a toilet if enough people in the area want one," says Jockin Arputham, whose ngo sparc led the construction work. The corporation now gets dozens of applications for making new toilets each month. So, it has made a much more ambitious proposal for a Rs 700 crore loan, which will be used not only to make toilets but also to connect them to newly-made sewer lines.Meanwhile, several other cities in other states are working on the same lines. Pune already has 114; Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu will soon get toilets built by communities with loans from the city's textile mill owners; Visakhapatnam, Benares and some other cities too have plans.
J. Shubha, who lives in Cheetah Camp, says she loves the new toilet but uses it only when she has to because she can't afford to come more often. The toilet committee has used the fees to buy the only ambulance available in the area, on instalments. Once that is paid for, they want to start subsidised tuitions for school children, in the toilet, of course. In Mumbai's slums, the ideal may never be an option. But taking an opportunity and making the most of it, that's a Mumbai speciality.
