Yogita Dighe works as a salesperson at an electronics store in Aundh, an upmarket neighbourhood in Pune, India’s ninth-largest city.
Even though she has a comfortable job, Dighe used to be filled with consternation at the thought of having to use the store’s toilet. It is a unisex space shared by customers and staff, and is “constantly dirty” owing to overuse, being cleaned only once every day or two.
“It smells and I don’t like to enter it,” she says.
A year ago, Dighe discovered a “Ti bus” (“ti” translating as “her” from Marathi) – a restroom inside a decommissioned bus, parked about five minutes away from her workplace. Since then, she’s used it regularly. Cleaned after every use, the toilets within the bus “feel nice and fresh”.
Dighe says she can also wash and freshen up there, since running water and a mirror are always available, unlike the bathroom at her workplacr.
Dighe is not alone. Her peers, women working elsewhere in the market in shops and small offices, as well as female sweepers, vada pav and chai hawkers, security guards and police officers who do not have access to clean toilets in their vicinity, are also regulars, says Manisha Adhav, the attendant who works at the Aundh Ti bus.
Currently, 12 decommissioned city buses in Pune have been converted and refurbished into restrooms by SaraPlast, a private sanitation company.
Located near public parks, bus stops and tourist centres, the buses-turned-bathrooms fulfil a deficit for women not only in Pune, but also in Hyderabad, Andaman and Nicobar’s touristy Neil Island and, as of next month, in Noida and Gandhinagar.
It is common for women in India to scramble to find a clean toilet during their daily commute to work, school or while running errands. Bus stops, crowded markets and even tourist spots either lack hygienic restrooms or don’t have one at all, leading women to avoid drinking water for hours.
The True Cost of Poor Sanitation, the most recent report on the subject conducted by Lixil, WaterAid Japan and Oxford Economics, in 2016, stated that a lack of access to sanitation cost India 5.2 per cent of its GDP in 2015. The situation has not improved much since then.
Every person, whether rich or poor, should have access to a good, clean toilet
Ulka Sadalkar,
director, SaraPlast
Pune has only 1,240 toilets for a population of 6.8 million, according to the Pune Municipal Corporation. Some of these are non-functional, and many others are used as dumping grounds for tobacco and cigarette butts. Most Indian cities also suffer from a lack of constant flowing water in public toilets.
It’s why the team at SaraPlast, which is in the business of building portable toilets for construction sites, decided to build these lavatories for women and children. Each solar-powered bus toilet comes with a full-time female attendant and can be accessed either free of charge or for a fee of 5 rupees (25 fils), affordable even for low-income women.
Prior to the pandemic, the average footfall for restrooms was 150 to 200 per day, says Ulka Sadalkar, SaraPlast’s director.
A study published in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies in 2019, found that women were unable to use public toilets owing to a lack of water, adequate light, accessibility and visibility from main roads, sanitary towel disposal bins and absence of female attendants.
SaraPlast’s toilets check all these boxes. Showers, Indian and western latrines, breastfeeding and baby-changing stations, sanitary towels and drinking water are all included in the buses to meet the needs of every woman.
Vaishnavi Rajput, a business development professional in Pune, has become particularly picky about public toilets since the pandemic started. “I choose the Ti bus over a lot of cafe toilets,” she says.
Sadalkar says: “Every person, whether rich or poor, should have access to a good, clean toilet.”
But to run a sustainable business, the space includes either a kiosk selling masks and juices or an affordable health diagnostic centre, set up on one side of the bus. Banner ads also bring in revenue, which goes towards water supply, electricity, repairs and the salary of the attendant who cleans and maintains the restroom from 8am to 8pm.
In India, a public bus goes out of commission after 15 years. Pune’s transport department recently auctioned 400 buses for scrapping and has 150 more in its stores.
Recycling the body of the buses and building toilets within them prolongs their life by up to two decades, aside from the social service it offers.
Buses are placed where brick and mortar toilets cannot be built owing to a lack of space and infrastructure.
“I don’t have to buy land or get permissions, so it is faster than constructing a concrete toilet,” Sadalkar says. “A bus toilet can also be placed on a heritage site without damaging anything, which is a big advantage.”
While the running costs are borne by SaraPlast, the funding for construction comes from the CSR departments of corporates, while the local municipality office appoints a location, and sorts out connections to existing drainage, water and electricity lines.
Other cities are following in Pune’s footsteps, too. Last year, Bengaluru commissioned SaraPlast to convert a scrapped bus into a toilet and installed it at a bus stop in the city.
The concept was so well received that NK Basavaraju, chief mechanical engineer – production at Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, says: "Now, the city’s transport department is emulating the design to create many more bus toilets.”
* Video shot and provided by SaraPlast
Specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.5-litre%20turbo%204-cylinder%20%2F%202.0%20turbo%204-cylinder%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20148bhp%20%2F%20328bhp%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20250Nm%20%2F%20420Nm%20(S3)%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20December%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20TBA%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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China
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3.
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UAE
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4.
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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Canada
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Singapore
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Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster with a decades-long career in TV. He has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others. Karam is also the founder of Takreem.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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The Sky Is Pink
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, Rohit Saraf
Three stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
57%20Seconds
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MATCH INFO
Manchester United 2 (Heaton (og) 42', Lindelof 64')
Aston Villa 2 (Grealish 11', Mings 66')
Sri Lanka's T20I squad
Thisara Perera (captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.
Maestro
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RESULTS
6pm: Mazrat Al Ruwayah – Group 2 (PA) $40,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner: AF Alajaj, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
6.35pm: Race of Future – Handicap (TB) $80,000 (Turf) 2,410m
Winner: Global Storm, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
7.10pm: UAE 2000 Guineas – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Azure Coast, Antonio Fresu, Pavel Vashchenko
7.45pm: Business Bay Challenge – Listed (TB) $100,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: Storm Damage, Patrick Cosgrave, Saeed bin Suroor
20.20pm: Curlin Stakes – Listed (TB) $100,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Appreciated, Fernando Jara, Doug O’Neill
8.55pm: Singspiel Stakes – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
Winner: Lord Glitters, Daniel Tudhope, David O'Meara
9.30pm: Al Shindagha Sprint – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Meraas, Antonio Fresu, Musabah Al Muhairi
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Results:
6.30pm: Handicap (Turf) | US$175,000 2,410m | Winner: Bin Battuta, Christophe Soumillon (jockey), Saeed bin Suroor (trainer)
7.05pm: UAE 1000 Guineas Trial Conditions (Dirt) | $100,000 | 1,400m | Winner: Al Hayette, Fabrice Veron, Ismail Mohammed
7.40pm: Handicap (T) | $145,000 | 1,000m | Winner: Faatinah, Jim Crowley, David Hayes
8.15pm: Dubawi Stakes Group 3 (D) | $200,000 | 1,200m | Winner: Raven’s Corner, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
8.50pm: Singspiel Stakes Group 3 (T) | $200,000 | 1,800m | Winner: Dream Castle, Christophe Soumillon, Saeed bin Suroor
9.25pm: Handicap (T) | $175,000 | 1,400m | Winner: Another Batt, Connor Beasley, George Scott
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Allianz Arena, Munich
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
'Gold'
Director:Anthony Hayes
Stars:Zaf Efron, Anthony Hayes
Rating:3/5