Hyderabad: The GHMC municipal commissioner has directed hoteliers to set up sign boards outside their premises stating that the establishments’ toilets will be available for public use. This means even if you are not a customer of the hotel, you can still use its toilet. On Wednesday morning, the municipal commissioner visited the Chutney’s restaurant at Begumpet and directed the hotel to open its toilets for public use. Hyderabad becomes the first city to implement such a plan. Petrol pumps have also been directed to make their toilets available to the public and currently, a total of 323 petrol bunks have complied.
While this may be good for the travelling public, the city’s hotel association believes it is the civic body’s responsibility to provide public toilets. The association believes that shoving the sanitation burden on to them is a “bad idea”. S. Venkat Reddy, president of the TS hotel association says, “Even before the municipal corporation set up public toilets, many hotels, especially along the main roads, were allowing people to use their toilets. Even today, we have not heard of any hotel management restricting people from using their restrooms. But making it compulsory and asking hotels to set up boards is a burden in terms of maintenance. Also, it is a headache because many, who live on the road, would just want to use it and this will cause inconvenience to customers.”
He says the corporation should instead increase the number of public toilets. While they don’t want to deny the GHMC, the latter should not make it compulsory. However, the GHMC has gone ahead with its plan on Wednesday, with zonal and circle level officials visiting hotels and restaurants to order the owners/management to open their toilets to all members of the public as a corporate social responsibility measure. They claimed that more than a hundred hotels have agreed to do so, and will put up the boards. In fact, Chutney’s gave it in writing that it will open its toilets for public use and will also put up the required sign board.
