CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has planned to privatise public toilets in the city, and also approved an estimated cost of Rs 1,167 crore for over 7,000 toilet seats during the council meeting held at Ripon Building on Friday.
The tender will be floated in October to carry out construction and renovation work of public toilets in several zones under package 2,3 and 4.
The civic body has decided to select a concessionaire who will design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) the toilets in 15 zones for 9 years. Of which, one year will be for design, build and commissioning, and the remaining will be for the operation and maintenance phase.
Already, more than 3,000 toilet seats have been renovated, and public toilets were constructed in 372 places in Royapuram (Zone 5), Thiru Vi Ka Nagar (Zone 6) and Marina of Teynampet under Package 1. The work is expected to be completed by the end of November.
As many as 2,301 seats in 285 locations in Tiruvottiyur, Manali, Madhavaram and Tondiarpet (zone 1-4) will be constructed and renovated at Rs 350 crore under Package 2. Under Package 3, the civic body has floated a tender to carry out repairs in 2,760 toilets at 395 locations in four zones – Ambattur, Anna Nagar, Teynampet (except Marina) and Kodambakkam (zones 7-10) for Rs 443 crore.Tender to be floated in October for constructing and repairing them in 3 packages
Similarly, Rs 373 crore has been allocated for renovation works in zones 11-15 – Valasaravakkam, Alandur, Adyar, Perungudi and Shollinganallur at 322 places.
K Dhanasekaran, head of accounts committee, requested Mayor Priya and GCC Commissioner Kumaragurubaran to maintain the public toilets by the Corporation since private contractors take too long to complete the works.
"It takes only 2-3 months to construct a public toilet in the wards, which comes under the councillor development fund. Still, the construction work under package one is yet to be completed by the private contractor. Authorities should reconsider this before floating the tender,” he added.