Mumbai's Marine Drive gets swanky public toilet for Rs 90 lakh; eco-friendly loo equipped with solar panel, vacuum technology

Mumbai: A swanky and eco-friendly public toilet equipped with solar panel and vacuum technology to save water has come up at the Marine Drive in south Mumbai. Built at a whopping cost of Rs 90 lakh, the facility will be of great help to the general public, including joggers and cyclists, who throng the iconic promenade, a civic official said. [caption id=“attachment_5303961” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The public toilet was built at a cost of Rs 90 lakh. Image courtesy: Firstpost Hindi[/caption] People do not have to pay any fee to use it, he said. Shiv Sena’s youth wing leader Adityaa Thackeray inaugurated the six-block toilet Monday. Leading alloy-maker JSW Group, Samatech Foundation, the social development arm of Samatech company, and the Nariman Point Churchgate Citizens Association came together to set up the facility. A toilet generally requires eight litres of water for a single flush, but this facility uses only 800 ml water, an official of the JSW Group said. “Besides saving water, the toilet’s vacuum technology will prevent a few million litres of raw sewage from getting flushed directly into the Marine Drive bay each year,” Samatech Foundation’s co-founder Akshat Gupta said.