Third Gender People Get Their Own Toilets In New Delhi

It may seem a little late but the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has finally decided to provide toilets in the national capital exclusively for the third gender.

In its annual budget for 2021-2022, the civic body has proposed to built toilets exclusively for transgender people.

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H.P. Singh, a senior NDMC official dealing with the project, told IANS: "Construction of toilets exclusively for the third gender, especially in busy marketplaces, has been a long-pending demand from the transgender community in Delhi. Therefore, observing their requirement, the NDMC has constructed a toilet exclusively for the third gender at Shastri Bhawan."

"The NDMC has built the first toilet for third gender at Shastri Bhavan, which is yet to get in use. We are in the process to identify sites to construct a few more such toilets in the NDMC area," Singh further said.

"They are also allowed to use common toilets but many of them hesitate to use them due to many reasons and we must respect their priorities," Singh added.

Despite scores of transgender people residing in several parts of Delhi — such as Paharganj, Daryaganj, Burari, Shastri Park, Subhash Park, Laxmi Nagar — for decades, there is not a single toilet exclusively for transgender people built by any government authority in the Capital so far.

The under-construction toilet at Shastri Bhawan will be the first exclusive toilet for the people of the transgender community in the Capital.

Delhi, despite being the Capital, has so far failed to provide exclusive toilets for trans-gender people.

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The Supreme Court in 2014 recognised transgender people as third gender and had directed the Centre and the states to create separate toilets for transgender people, among other facilities.

Mysuru was the first city in the country where third-gender people were provided exclusive toilets. After Mysore, Bhopal became the second city where a toilet for trans-gender people was built in 2018 and after that many other state governments began building toilets exclusively for them. (IANS)