Months after wife tweeted how people defecating in the open ruined her morning walks, Akshay Kumar funds bio-toilets at Juhu beach; teams up with Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray to install the toilets. Spends about Rs 10 lakh on the loos
Chaitanya Marpakwar (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 3, 2018)

Eight months after actor-turned-author Twinkle Khanna got trolled for tweeting how people defecating in the open ruined her morning walks, a row of bio-toilets funded by her husband, superstar Akshay Kumar, were opened for public use on Juhu beach. Twinkle’s tweet -- “Good morning and I guess here is the first scene of Toilet Ek Prem Katha part 2 #WhenYourWalkGoesDownTheToilet” – in August last year was liked and retweeted several hundreds of times. But it was also criticized for insensitivity towards slum-dwellers who have no choice but to use the beach as a toilet in the absence of public loos.

While Twinkle, who boasts of 31.2 lakh followers on Twitter, had subsequently tweeted that a public toilet was located just minutes away from the spot where she photographed a man defecating, the BMC on Monday said even the toilets sponsored by her husband will only partly solve the problem and that three or four more such toilets will have to be installed to make Juhu and Versova beaches open defecation free.

BMC officials said that Akshay teamed up with Shiv Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray for installing the toilets and spent around Rs 10 lakh. The toilet has six seats, three each for men and women, and a separate row of urinals. “The toilets have bio-digester so there will be no stink. The toilets will bring a lot of relief to not just the local slum dwellers, but also to visitors,” said Assistant Municipal Commissioner, K-West ward, Prashant Gaikwad. At the moment, there is only one public toilet at the main entry of the 6 km beach.

The BMC last year launched a campaign to eradicate open defecation and the Quality Council of India on July 6 declared the city ‘open defecation-free’. However, it’s clear that it was a misleading tag and that open defecation remains a problem in the city. Akshay last year co-produced and acted in a movie titled Toilet - Ek Prem Katha. The movie, also starring Bhumi Pednekar addressed the problem of open defecation, especially in rural areas, and won the lead actors a lot of acclaim.

According to the data available with the municipal corporation, there were 117 major open defecation spots in the city. Most of these spots were located in plots owned by government departments and agencies. The BMC claims that most of these open defecation spots have been dealt with.

According to the Swachh Bharat Mission guidelines, there should be a toilet seat for every 30 users. Based on this calculation, the city needs around 1.36 lakh toilet seats to cater to the 63 per cent of its population living in slums. Mumbai is 60,000 toilet seats short of this target.