This paid service at Indian Railway stations will soon become cheaper

According to a latest report, the Railway Board has put forward a proposal before the Divisional Railway Managers whether they want to keep the ‘pay and Use ‘ toilet free or want to continue to impose a charge for their use. With this proposal, this ‘pay and Use’ toilet will become cheaper or even free to use at smaller stations. Till now the
contractors who built those toilets could fix a charge according to the market price.

“DRMs are empowered to make location-specific assessments to decide whether construction, operation, maintenance of the pay and use toilets should be taken up as an ‘earning contract’ or a service contract,” said a letter dated February 7 from the Railway Board to all zonal railways after the Board’s meeting on February 2.

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This review in the charge imposed for these toilets was necessitated as there were reports that not much toilets were built as needed under Swachh Bharat Mission and that those
which were built were not being adequately used by the people in rural area.Instead of using the Pay and use toilets people in the rural area were defecating in open.Now the
DRM’s will have the charge on to decide whether they want to charge a fee for the use of toilet based on whether it is commercially viable or not.

The DRM’s can also decide how many toilets need to be built under the Swachh Bharat Mission which they can be built under self-help groups or NGO’s who specialize in the building of such toilets. The DRMs have been allowed to sign MOUs with non-profits which specialize in such toilets under the new policy. Officials say that this policy will be reviewed in a month’s time.

Though according to the 2012 guideline the charge for using the toilet for the laterine is 2 rupees and for using the bathroom it is 5 rupees, at many places 15 to 20 rupees are charged.