You could say that our country has (pretty much) everything that tourists want—marvellous scenery, imposing monuments, ancient ruins, hotels of every description, variety of food, good roads...
Yet, there is one thing that is often missing—good toilets.
If you have travelled around our country, you would have found that most places have a serious lack of this essential convenience.
Yes, you could find a free toilet, or a ‘sulabh shauchalaya’, in some places, but most likely, it will be a dark, dingy, damp and smelly place. The attendant, if there is one, would reckon that cleaning means splashing a bucket of water around once in a while. Such places are not appealing to many people—ladies, elderly citizens, and especially foreigners.
If one is out sightseeing the whole day, one would definitely need to use a toilet at least once, maybe more. If there is no acceptable toilet, one either has to do without, which causes significant discomfort, or use the only available facility—under duress.
Why is this so?
There seems to be an underlying assumption in the matter of toilets in tourist places – they have to be free so that ‘everyone’ can use them.
Unfortunately, as we well know, a service that is given for free, or nearly free, is rarely of a high quality.
This automatically means that public toilets will be of poor quality because building and maintaining toilets is a loss-making proposition, something that only the government, or a charitable trust, would do. Is this assumption true? I don’t think so.
I believe that a significant proportion of tourists would gladly pay a fee to use a toilet that is clean, dry, and non-smelling—like the toilets in their own homes.
The fee I have in mind is Rs25.
Before you say, “Oh! So much?” consider this.
Touring in India, in reasonable comfort, costs around Rs2,000 per day per person, inclusive of accommodation, food, sightseeing and travel costs. If you are an affluent traveller, you can expect to spend twice, or even thrice, this amount, if you take into account the costs of a rented car, flight tickets, 3+ star hotels, restaurant food, etc.
Rs25 for a toilet visit is really very little in comparison with the money a tourist spends every day.
Look at it from another angle. A cup of tea on the roadside costs Rs25 in most places. A roadside snack could easily cost more than Rs100 per person.
I am not being elitist. Admittedly, there are many people who would think twice before spending Rs25 to use a toilet, but there are many other people who wouldn’t mind at all.
Given such a fee, the whole matter of building good toilets becomes a very different proposition.
Time for some numbers.
A small ‘building’ (if one can call it that) of about 60sqft can accommodate three toilets. The total cost, including the cost of land, good quality fittings, tiles, etc, should not exceed Rs5 lakh.
Operating such a toilet for eight hours a day (9am to 5pm) would require a full-time attendant at a cost of Rs3 lakh p.a. (including leave replacement) and sundry expenses (cleaning material, electricity, etc) of Rs0.6 lakh pa bringing the total cost to Rs3.6 lakh pa, or about Rs1,000 per day.
Now let’s turn to the revenue side.
At Rs25 a go, this operating cost will be covered if just 40 people use it every day, which is five people per hour. If the number is just a little higher—50 people per day—there will be a surplus of Rs250 per day, or over Rs90,000pa. At this rate, the capital cost will be recovered in just six years.
Let’s look at one example of a road that is simply begging for such a toilet to be constructed—NH10, the road from Siliguri to Gangtok.
In January—March 2024, 290,000 tourists visited Sikkim, and the total number is expected to reach 1.2mn (million) in calendar year 2024.
Almost without exception, every tourist has to travel on the NH10 from Siliguri toward Gangtok, and back to Siliguri after completing the trip, because the nearest railhead (as of now) is at Siliguri, and the nearest airport is at Bagdogra, near Siliguri. The 112km journey takes up to six hours, because it is mostly a hilly and congested road.
On this road, there is only one place where you will find a toilet which anyone will be happy to use. It is just a single toilet inside a restaurant. It goes without saying that you will have to spend some time, and money, at the restaurant if you want to use the toilet—you cannot just nip in, use the toilet and leave.
Consider this - more than 3,000 tourists traverse NH10 daily, in each direction, sitting in a bus or car for six hours. If just 1% of these 6,000 people are willing to pay Rs25 to use a clean and hygienic toilet, our little roadside toilet will make a nice little profit. There is also the possibility of setting up a small side business nearby–selling tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks–which will generate further income.
This will provide a win-win for everyone concerned – the tourists, the owner, and the attendant. With a little blessing from the government, this little enterprise can be a very useful, and much-appreciated, service.
To sum up:
- Tourists need clean and hygienic toilets, for which a sizeable number will be willing to pay a reasonable fee.
- If the government sets up a toilet, it will perforce have to be a free, or near free, facility, which will (almost) inevitably mean that good standards will not be maintained.
- Building and running public toilets, on a commercial basis and to high standards, can be a profitable business.
I rest my case.
Will someone please come to the aid of tourists and make a profit in the process?
(Deserting engineering after a year in a factory, Amitabha Banerjee did an MBA in the US and returned to India. Choosing work-to-live over live-to-work, he joined banking and worked for various banks in India and the Middle East. Post-retirement, he returned to his hometown Kolkata and is now spending his golden years travelling the world, playing bridge, befriending Netflix & Prime Video and writing in his wife’s travel blog.)
(1) Instead of Rs. 25, include (say) Rs. 5 for EVERY tourist ENTRY TICKET to the site or monument & PRINT on ticket prominently "Free use of Hygienic toilet" ????
(2) Similarly include Rs. 5 in every TOLL TICKET FASTTAG & Advertise prominently about FREE use of clean hygienic toilets!
(3) EXCLUSIVELY give maintainence of these Toilets to WOMEN HELP GROUPS around villages & towns in these TOURIST AREAS for better clean places
UNTIL FREE is turned into Self Sustaining Paying Business Models , without people looking at Rs. 25 (as cup of tea saving), we will NOT have common citizens using built toilets