Are the residents of Malbhat destined to use a crumbling toilet block owned and maintained by Sulabh International for their sanitation? This question has cropped up once again as the lone public toilet in the locality along the station road has been crying for attention for months now.
A ride down the Station Road towards the new Margao Railway Station would reveal that the toilet block is literally in ruins and even in the dilapidated state it is used. A perusal of the correspondence between the Voice of Malbhat, the Margao Municipal Council and the health authorities reveals that the residents have been demanding decent sanitation and an improvement in the basic amenities in the toilet block. The toilet doors are broken and crumbling, including the doors in the block used by the women.
Says Elvis Fernandes, president of Voice of Malbhat, “For two decades now, the local residents had been using the toilet block. We are not opposed to the reconstruction of the toilet block, but we want the local authority to re-build the block in phases so that the residents can continue to use the same even during reconstruction.”
Local residents in the past had knocked on the doors of the Municipal and Health authorities to ensure that the toilet is not misused for anti-social activities.
Malbhat ward Councillor and Margao Municipal Council Vice-Chairperson Dadi Mayenkar, however, said that the municipal body has set in motion the process to build a new toilet block at Malbhat. “The New Chief Officer Naveen S L now wants the civic body to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with Sulabh before they are entrusted the task of building a new toilet block at Malbhat,” Mayenkar said, while exuding confidence that the new toilet block will take shape at the earliest.
