KATHMANDU: Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has identified places for constructing public toilets. KMC is building toilets at 69 places where the public vehicles stop for passengers to get on board and disembark.

KMC Public-Private Partnership Unit chief, Dhruba Kafle, said that the public toilets would be constructed at places which are often crowded.

The places identified so far for this purpose are public vehicles stop in front of Nepal Art Council at Babarmahal, Thapathali bus stop, in front of Baneshwar temple, towards the east of Koteshwar Chowk, in front of National Trading Limited at Teku, near the Kalanki Metro Hall, Balaju, Baisdhara, Sitapaila bus stop and Machhapokhari.

Similarly, public toilets would be constructed at Gaushala, Teenkune, Tripureshwar, Sundhara, near the Juddha Statue, Hanumandhoka, Jamal, Lainchaur, Sohrakhutte, Balkhu and Kuleshwar, in the first phase, which was identified by the task force formed on January 20 for the construction of public toilets.

Among the 58 public toilets that are currently in operation in KMC, only 28 are usable while the rest are unusable and need to be repaired.

Many of the existing public toilets lack facilities like water, soap, light and sanitary pads, Kafle said. Although KMC had set the objective of constructing smart toilets at 41 different locations within the city two years ago, works to that end have not been started yet.

KMC Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya, last April, directed all the KMC wards to identify places for constructing smart toilets.