Beggars, ragpickers to manage public toilets in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 10: Beggars and ragpickers may soon manage toilet complexes in the national capital, with the NDMC planning to launch a novel initiative for their empowerment.

"Under the 'Atm Nirbhar' (self-dependent) scheme, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation will provide institutional help in forming cooperatives of beggars and rag pickers," said Vijay Prakash Pandey, chairman, Department of Environment Management Services (DEMS) Committee of NDMC.

After formation of the cooperatives, they will be entrusted the task of running the toilet blocks, he said.

"The DEMS with the help of NGOs working with these people will work for setting up cooperatives which will be initially given responsibility to run public toilets in JJ clusters.

Later on they may be associated with upkeep of toilets of other categories," he said. Pandey said if the scheme is successful, the experiment may also be replicated for door to door garbage collection.

The municipal corporation is also working on giving the public toilets in its jurisdiction to private agencies for ensuring cleanliness and better upkeep.

Also, under the Swachch Bharat campaign, the civic body has planned to hand over maintenance of toilets to corporates to bring down the expenditure on it.

PTI