Improvement in community toilet complex services through community monitoring - India

About Community Toilet Complexes

In most slum settlements, the municipal corporations provide Community Toilet Complexes (CTCs). Typically a toilet complex has 10, 20 or 40 toilet seats along with bathing areas and hand washing points. They are designed to cater to the basic sanitation needs of a floating population.

In Delhi, the day-to-day toilet management and infrastructure maintenance is usually out-sourced.  A well thought out contract covers the service provider’s responsibilities, revenue streams and feedback / accountability mechanisms.  However, in reality, the contact terms are hardly referred to, supervision is very poor, and the accountability of the NGO is very limited. The community is ignorant about its rights.

Our Practical Intervention

We tried to create a community-centred feedback method which is regular, reliable, based on information about the services they should expect, replicable and scalable. For this, using the information from Terms of Contract for CTCs, a list of parameters was designed under which each CTC would be monitored every 15 days. Further, a team of five women from the community itself was made, named the CTC Monitoring Committee who would evaluate the CTC every 15 days on the basis of the parameters given to them and report the same to the community and to us.

The feedback is entered into a centralized database and sent to relevant government departments. Also quarterly review meetings are held with the Deputy Commissioner of the districts with the CTC monitoring committees and service providers. The committees share the consolidated data, improvements are praised and problems are discussed.

Outcome

The results have been outstanding. The condition of the toilets has improved significantly on most parameters. The community is aware of its rights and the service provider is conscious of his responsibilities. The two have developed a better understanding and hence co-ordination is better. Also a framework for government support to community has been created. There is a move towards further institutionalizing this.