Environment and rights activists said on Tuesday lack of public toilets at places of mass gathering in Dhaka causes health hazards and environment pollution.
They said every day a large number of citizens of the capitals’ have to defecate on roadsides and open spaces in the absence of adequate number of public toilets.
As a result, citizens contract many water-borne diseases including jaundice, typhoid, cholera and diarrhoea, they said, adding that lack of sanitation facility puts negative impacts on the economy as well.
The speakers also demanded a policy regarding public toilets in the urban and rural areas.
They said this at a discussion session titled ‘The importance and current situation of public toilets to protect public health and environment’ for observing World Toilet Day.
The session was jointly held by Paribesh Banchao Andolan and Work for a Better Bangladesh at the office of POBA at capitals’ Kalabagan.
At the programme, POBA joint secretary M Abdus Sobhan read out a written statement in which he said only 57 per cent urban people of the country have sanitation facility, whereas the number is 55 per cent for the rural people according to a World Bank report published in 2012.
‘Mostly, females and children have to face trouble for lack of public toilet facility at the shopping malls, bus terminals, railway stations and other public places,’ he said.
He also said the number and quality of toilets in all public places including educational institutions, government offices and markets are so poor.
A recent survey conducted by POBA on public toilets was also disclosed at the session.
The survey found public toilets at Azimpur intersection, beside Maternity Hospital and airport railway station dirty and unhygienic.
These toilets were found having broken commode without water facility and soap, and producing bad stench but the citizens were being charged Tk 2 to Tk 10 for using these toilets.
The survey also found almost the same condition at the toilets of a government educational institution at Mirpur.
It, however, found a better situation at a public toilet in Rabindra Sarobar at Dhanmondi.
POBA general secretary Kamal Pasha Chwdhury presided over the session while WBB executive director Mahbubul Alam and POBA joint secretary Syed Monwar Hossain addressed the programme.
-With New Age input
