Towards Development of A Standard For Public ToiletsFor Developing CountriesRowshan Mamtaz, Bangladesh

201

world toilet summit 2007, new delhi

Category Name Description

Bus/Railway Station Saidabad Bus Terminal One of the busiest bus terminals of the city where several hundred buses operate each day

Kamlapur Rail Station The only railway station of the city

Market Place Basundhara Garden City Upscale new shopping mall

New Market Most popular open shopping area of the city

Stadium Mirpur Cricket Stadium Newly built stadium for cricket with a capacity of35,000 viewers

Mosque Facility Baitul Mokarram National Mosque and the largest of the country

Recreational Facility Mirpur Zoo The largest zoological park of the country

Field survey was conducted at the selected sites and the

opinion and views of the users and the caretakers on different

aspects concerning the facilities were collected through

questionnaire survey. The existing facilities and other relevant

information of the studied locations are presented in Table 2.

Analysis and Findings

It is observed from the study that public toilets in Dhaka city are

in very poor condition. Among the studied locations, only two

toilets (Bashundhara Garden City Complex and Mirpur Cricket

Stadium) are found in good condition and one (Baitul

Mokarrom Mosque) is in moderately good condition. These

toilets are managed by the relevant authorities themselves.

The other toilets are all in an unusable state. These toilets are

leased out by DCC to contractors who are responsible for their

management including repair of any damage. However it has

been found that the contractors are often reluctant to carry out

this responsibility. The condition of the facilities deteriorates

further due to lack of monitoring from DCC. The users rated

privately managed public toilets as better than those of DCC

(Table 3).

There is no special provision for physically challenged

persons in the public toilets of Dhaka city. Public toilet facility

for women has also been found to be inadequate indicating

lack of attention to this important aspect of urban facility.

From the users' point of view the main reasons for the poor

condition of public toilets are poor management and

excessive load on each toilet. Only about half the users are

satisfied with the service (Fig. 1). However, the users

complained about vomiting tendency, loss of appetite and

Table 1: Selection of public toilets by category.

headache after using such unhygienic toilets. They further

complained that most of the time there is no water supply in

these toilets. The users suggested that toilets should be

provided with soap, tissue and good fittings to improve the

service even if they need to pay for such additional facilities

provided the cost is within affordable limits (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1 : User's comment on overall situation (n=38).

Fig. 2: Recommendation of additional service (n=38).

202

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203

world toilet summit 2007, new delhi

According to the caretakers most of the users are uneducated

and do not know the proper use of the toilets which adds to the

unhygienic and filthy environment and in some cases cause

damage to the facilities.

In order to determine the most effective measures to improve

the situation of public toilet facilities in Dhaka, a comparison is

made between the various aspects of public toilets of Dhaka

and those in the cities of the developed countries (Table 4).

From this comparison it is obvious that the issues that need

immediate attention for Dhaka is to formulate a public toilet

strategy including provision of standards and codes, proper

legislation, planning and maintenance guidelines and

adequate funding. Without these it would not be possible to

achieve the goal of Sanitation for All and protect the health of

the city dwellers.

Features Dhaka Developed cities

Number of public toilets Very few with respect to the demand City of Adequate and number increases with demand

Public toilet strategy unplanned development. Public toilets are Public toilet planning is an integral part of urban provided with respect to availability of land spatial planning: but not demand

Public toilet map No public toilet map Public toilet map is provided for the users and tourists

Provision and standards No exclusive provisions and standards for Exclusive provisions and standards for publicpublic toilets toilets

Design, construction and Carried out by private contractors on behalf Carried out by private contractors on behalf ofmaintenance work of facilities of Council Councilunder city council

Cleaning of facilities under city Not properly monitored by DCC. There is no Public toilets are cleaned at a frequencycouncil fixed time schedule for monitoring dependent on their locality and usage. The

maintenance contract allows for more frequent cleaning when required

Maintenance and repair of Time consuming, as complain is made to The contractor is obliged under the contract to facilities under city council DCC and engineering department takes ensure that remedial works relating to public

long time to act safety or hygiene are done within two hours

from notification or inspection

Funding for installing new Lack of funding A considerable amount of budget is allocated in facilities under city council installing, upgrading and maintaining public

toilet facilities

Legislation for privately No exclusive legislation act. Strong legislation act with enforcementmaintained public toilet facilities

Table 4: Comparison of public toilet facilities of Dhaka with those in developed countries

Recommendations

The recommendations that emanate from the study cover all

the major areas of public toilet planning, construction,

management, policy and legislative issues. Most users agree

that unless there is a proper legislative structure and DCC is

equipped with adequate resource (staff and funding), it would

not be possible for them to provide and maintain this service

properly. The specific recommendations are as follows:

- Incorporation of a standard code of practice similar to

BS6465, NEA or New Zealand Code (BSI, 1996;

Greed, 2004; NEA, 2005);

- Siting of public toilets should be based on demand and

not on availability of land;

- Fixing optimum charge that will maximize use and help

maintaining the facility;

- Reforming DCC so that it gets a management structure

suitable for efficient management of public toilets;

- Installing a grading system for public toilet facilities at

some predefined intervals. Toilets below the standards

should be upgraded immediately (Sim, 2003);

- Formulating suitable legislation for planning,

construction and management of public toilets;

- Formulating users' guideline for maintenance

according to WTO guideline (WTO, 2007); and

- Carrying out awareness raising campaigns for

maintenance of public toilets with participation from

owners, cleaners and users.

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Conclusion

It is found that the condition of the public toilets in Dhaka city is

far below acceptable standards. The reasons for this include

absence of public toilet strategy, lack of relevant legal

framework, absence of public awareness in their use and

maintenance, inadequate funding, non-availability of land and

inadequate institutional capacity. With the fast increasing

metropolis like Dhaka City and other secondary towns of the

country, it is crucial that a standard code for design,

construction, maintenance, management and operation

should be developed for Bangladesh.

References

BSI (1996), “BS 6465: Sanitary installations: Part I: Code of

practice for the scale of provision, selection and installation of

sanitary appliances”, London: BSI (British Standards

Institute).

DCC (2007), “Official web site of Dhaka City Corporation”,

http://www.dhakacity.org/service_public_toilet.html

Greed, C. (2004), “A Code of Practice for Public Toilets in

Britain”, WTO Summit, Beijing, 17-19 Nov, 2004.

NEA (2005), “Code of Practice on Environmental Health”,

http://app.nea.gov.sg/cms/htdocs/article.asp?pid=1223

WTO (2007), “Official web site for World Toilet Organization”,

http://www.worldtoilet.org/

Sim, J (2003), “The Happy Toilet Program A Star Grading

System for Singapore Public Toilets”, WTO Summit, Taipei,

Taiwan, 10-12 Oct, 2003.

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