With malls, banks, petrol pumps and other facilities mushrooming across the district, one would barely have to walk a few miles in any direction to find whatever they need. Try looking for a clean, functioning public toilet, however, and the story is entirely different.

Representational Pic

The issue has long been a sore point for citizens, but it hardly seems to matter to local MLAs, who have failed to allot funds to build public toilets yet again in this year’s proposals under the Local Area Development (LAD) scheme. Except for Girish Bapat, MLA for the Kasba assembly segment, who proposed spending R24 lakh to build two public toilets in his constituency, none of the other seven MLAs have set aside funds to redress the problem. Instead, most of the other leaders have chosen to spend on the construction of community halls and gymnasiums, installing streetlights, and the procurement of gymnasium equipment, according to the District Planning Committee records.