Girls toilets in 132 GCC schools to get Nirbhaya Fund spruce-up

CHENNAI: Stinking toilets and damaged doors in the schools run by the Greater Chennai Corporation will be a thing of the past as the civic body has decided to renovate girls’ toilets in those schools under the Nirbhaya Fund.

A Chennai Corporation official said as many as 132 schools have been selected for the project and toilets in poor conditions will be taken up for the renovation. The project will be taken up at a cost of around Rs 6 crore. Chennai Corporation runs 281 schools in the city.

“The projects will be implemented by respective zonal offices and some zones have started floating bids. All the toilets that are included in the projects are in the schools where girl students attend,” the official said.

The civic body has earmarked around Rs 18 crore under the Nirbhaya Fund to improve toilet facilities for the girl students in Chennai schools.

“Some schools have asked to construct new toilet blocks for the girls. The remaining earmarked fund will be utilised for new toilet blocks. However, the project is in the discussion stage,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the civic body will install more than 5,500 new street lights under the Fund across the city. Of the 5,500 street lights, as many as 692 lights will be installed in the dark spots identified by the city police. Also, around 3,800 lights will be installed in extended zones.

Some of the dark spots identified are Kathivakkam High Road near Government School, NSC Bose Road near the Broadway bus stand, and Poonamallee High Road near the Metrorail head office.

Similarly, Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has commenced installing panic buttons and CCTV cameras on buses and the equipment have been installed on more than 200 buses.