Lack Of Toilets Is Forcing Some 400 Girls Of This Hyderabad College To Pee In The Open

It is back to the dark ages for women at the 40-year-old Smt Durgabai Deshmukh Women's Technical Training Institute at Ameerpet that does not have a single 'functional' toilet on campus.

Result: All the 476 girls studying at the government-run institute are forced to make a dash for the college field, terrace or an 'abandoned' classroom, each time they need to relieve themselves.

In the name of privacy, all they have is a thin 'dupatta' that friends encircling them hold on to.

TOI

When we visited the campus recently, the stench on the premises was hard to miss. While women studying there confessed to the 'serious problem' of unclean, unhygienic toilets they also said how they have, by now, recoiled to their fate. "We are adjusting by peeing wherever we can," a student candidly shared.

Repeated complaints to the principal, she said, had failed to yield any result.

That the grievances of students wasn't baseless, is something even faculty members agreed to while ruing how the toilets had not been cleaned in years.

While M Nagaraj, a former head of department of architecture from the college in November last year shot a letter to the Telangana chief minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, and the state women and child welfare department, he too is yet to receive a response. In the letter, he stated: "The toilets in the institution are untidy. Neither are they cleaned regularly nor are there any proper facilities. The girl students of the institution are facing much difficulty while using the toilets".

Adding to misery of students are the heaps of garbage lying unattended at multiple corners within the college. Such is the situation that students now find it tough to concentrate in class, courtesy the unbearable stink.

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When contacted, college principal Suresh Janga said that condition of the toilets had deteriorated over time due to the lack of maintenance. "We are forced to live here. The present building is just a temporary arrangement. The toilets that we have are abandoned. Since the building will be dismantled, we cannot repair it," said Janga.

According to him a new building is under construction right behind the present campus though its completion is uncertain due to the "lack of government funds".

Sanitation apart, the institute that offers four diploma courses -- architecture assistantship, civil engineering, computer engineering and electronics and communications engineering - is also plagued by the absence of labs and equipment.

"All the lab equipment purchased is misused because there are no proper entries made in the stock register. The computers in the institution are not fully equipped. Some of the parts are damaged. They are neither repaired nor replaced," stated Nagaraj in his letter to the chief minister.

Students and faculty hope that their concerns are paid heed to by the state authorities at the earliest.