India News | EDMC Plans to Convert 50 Public Conveniences into 'smart Toilets'

New Delhi, Feb 7 (PTI) The East Delhi Municipal Corporation has invited proposals from firms to convert 50 public conveniences into 'smart toilets', officials said on Monday.

The project will be based on a public-private-partnership (PPP) mode, they said.

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To strengthen and upgrade civic services, the EDMC has planned to outsource work for conversion of 50 public conveniences at specified locations in its area into smart toilets, with advertisement rights and commercial space in limited or permitted areas at the facilities on a "design, built, operate & transfer (DBOT) basis," the EDMC said in a statement.

The toilets will be operated, managed and maintained on "free user charge basis" only for a period of 10 years, it said.

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EDMC Commissioner Vikas Anand said the corporation has invited proposals from firms, to convert 50 toilets into smart toilets in the area, based on a PPP model.

For this, the agency will be given 35 sq ft of space with each toilet for commercial use, along with the right to display advertisements on that toilet building, the statement said.

Anand said earlier the corporation had called for tenders by fixing least license fee of Rs 10 lakh per month, but no agency had applied.

"Subsequently, the license fee was reduced from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. Yet neither party showed any interest in the proposal. Therefore, it has now been decided that the decision of payment of minimum license fee should now be left to the interested party and tenders are being called again," he was quoted as saying in the statement.

Anand said Swachh Bharat Mission was launched by Government of India in 2014, and in seven years a lot of activities had been undertaken to improve level of sanitation.

In 2019, the corporation was certified as 'Open Defecation Free' and in 2020, it achieved 'ODF+' status, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)