An ill-maintained urinal in Patna. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Feb. 22: It is true that truth sometimes stinks.

The capital, with a population of over two million, has just over 30 public toilets.

What adds to the misery is the local administration’s apathy towards sanitation visible from the fact that most of these public facilities are in a bad shape and hardly in usable condition.

The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) gets scores of complaints on a regular basis about sanitation problems but nothing substantial has been done so far.

According to sources, after spending over Rs 5.25 crore, the state government built 32 deluxe toilets in Patna through Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam Limited (BRPNL).

Twenty of them were later handed over to the PMC for maintenance and 12 remain dysfunctional since the corporation did not take them over.

The corporation later outsourced the responsibility of carrying out sanitation work of 20 toilet complexes to private parties. Sources said that the corporation has not shown any interest in taking over the remaining 12 toilets.

They are lying idle since their completion and are unused so far. BRPNL has to spend Rs 6,000 per month on each toilet to deploy guards. Though a number of letters have been written to the PMC, no action has been taken so far.

Moreover, those toilets, which were taken over by the corporation, too present a dirty picture. A visit to these facilities reveals the sorry state of affairs, as people mostly prefer to urinate on the roadside rather than entering the toilets.

“Everyone is relieving in the open because the public toilets are reeking like hell. It seems that toilets have not been cleaned for days. There is no water and the pipes are leaking,” said a shopkeeper near Gandhi Maidan.

“To begin with, there are not enough public toilets in Patna. The condition of the few functioning public conveniences is in a shambles because of lack of maintenance and years of neglect. Public toilets are so unhygienic that people, especially women, are vulnerable to deadly infections. While men line up anywhere facing the wall and relieve themselves, women have no option other than using the toilets,” said Mansi Srivastava, a resident of Buddha Colony.

The PMC had handed over the toilets to private parties after charging Rs 2-4 lakh as bidding amount but lack of maintenance has meant poor business for the contractors.