Mobile toilets for women launched in Pune

STRAP: As per the latest survey provided by them, there are 100-200 locations in Pune where toilets are required and we are keen on expanding in those locations.

PUNE: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE- This is just the perfect treatment for the never-ending troubles women face in finding a clean washroom on the road, especially, during menstruation time. With very few option, a duo from the city developed a wonderful plan to get rid of this problem.

Entrepreneurs in the sanitation sector, Ulka Sadalkar and Rajeev Kher came up with the idea of converting old scrapped PMPML buses into mobile toilets for women. Each bus has Indian toilets, western toilets, wash basins, a diaper changing place and sanitary napkins for sale.

They collaborated with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had embarked on a journey towards providing sanitation for women in the year 2016 with a vision to provide better sanitation facilities to women. This mobile toilet named ‘Ti,’ which means ‘her’ in Marathi is in 12 different locations of the city and this duo is planning to expand it across the city in more locations.

Rajeev explained that the idea of creating toilets out of scrap buses came to him after he saw buses in the United States, which were used by homeless people. So, they had a meeting with PMC and brainstormed this idea to create toilets for lower income class women who do not have access to basic sanitation facilities and then they came out Ti.

He also believes that earlier, the concept of toilets was a taboo but with Swachh Bharat Abhiyan coming into existence, these issues are dealt with much sincerely.

These toilets have an inbuilt water tank and run on solar energy. There is a female attendant in all these buses and a small café is also attached. The buses are well equipped with basic facilities like clean washrooms and also a small space for breast feeding and diaper changing space. It also provides sanitary napkins to women with a television installed inside the toilet where information on UTI, menstrual hygiene and breast cancer is continuously played.

Ulka said, “PMC provided us with scrap buses and since we are in this business for so many years, these busses got refurbished at our manufacturing unit. It was a joint effort with PMC and solid waste management department to create sanitation facility for women.”

“Since we are also working with smart city initiative and all the data from usage of toilets to the usage of water goes to smart city centre, they also provide us with the locations where the footfall can be high so that we can expand this concept across the city,” She added.