Public toilets in Surat to display rates

Indian Express: Ahmedabad: Saturday, October 13, 2012.

Thanks to RTI, all public toilets in Surat city are to display the price for using them, when and how often they are cleaned, who the caretaker is and to whom complaints about the facility can be lodged in case there are any.

After more than six months of persistent petitioning by an RTI activist, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) finally decreed that he is in fact correct about such information being a part of every public toilet’s “proactive disclosure” under the law and that their walls, or a nearby signboard, must carry such details.

Surat resident Ajay Jangid, who runs an RTI helpline, filed his first complaint to the SMC in December last year, demanding that each public toilet should prominently display charges for using the facilities for men, women and children, timings, schedules for cleaning and repair, contact details of those responsible for such tasks, and the contact details of a grievance redressal authority, among others.

More than three months later, in a direction to responsible authorities, SMC's Special Deputy Commissioner P J Jhala ordered that all the information should be displayed in all public toilets within the city limits.