The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s proposal to charge Re 1 for urinals that have so far been free, while raising toilet charges from Rs 2 to Rs 5, has reopened a question that Mumbai has never fully resolved: how should a city finance a basic public service without making access harder for the people who depend on it most? The proposed change is not only about a few rupees at the entrance to a toilet. It brings into view the institutional and financial arrangements behind public sanitation, from colonial Bombay’s early civic infrastructure to today’s network of privately managed and community-run facilities.
The scale of that network makes the question significant. According to civic officials cited in the report, Mumbai has 846 public pay-and-use toilet complexes managed by private agencies and non-governmental organisations. It also has around 8,173 community toilet complexes, of which 3,110 are managed by the BMC. These facilities serve different neighbourhoods and user groups, but they share a basic operational requirement: toilets must be cleaned, supplied with water and electricity, repaired and staffed.
A senior civic official said operators have to pay for cleaning, repairs, water and electricity, as well as caretakers. The proposed increase is intended to help them meet rising expenses, with the additional revenue retained by the operators. That explanation establishes the immediate administrative logic behind the proposal. It also exposes the unresolved question of whether user fees alone can sustain a service whose public value extends beyond the individual user paying at the facility.
Mumbai’s sanitation history shows that this is not a new conflict between civic necessity and the ability or willingness to pay. Records from 1866 referred to 80 public urinals across the city. These were often elevated structures with stairs, and workers transported waste by train to areas such as Sion and Kurla. There, it was mixed with ash and vegetable matter before being dumped in salt marshes. The arrangement reflected the technology, geography and labour systems of the time, but it also demonstrated that sanitation depended on a chain of public decisions extending far beyond the toilet itself.
The plague outbreak of 1896 added urgency to concerns about overcrowding and unhygienic conditions. In response, authorities established the Bombay City Improvement Trust in 1898. Sanitation became part of a wider attempt to address the conditions of densely populated neighbourhoods, rather than a narrowly defined matter of individual behaviour.
Disagreements over the location and social acceptability of public toilets were already visible in the early twentieth century. When the Bombay Municipal Corporation proposed a public toilet at Thakurdwar in Girgaon in 1913, property owners opposed it, citing nuisance, possible effects on property values and its proximity to a temple. The municipal commissioner argued that the facility was necessary because the locality attracted large numbers of people and lacked an alternative public convenience.
Historian Mrunmayee Satam’s 2024 research paper, ‘Contesting the Toilet: Colonial Discourses, Elite Protests, and Religious Sentiments on Public Sanitation Infrastructure in Bombay City’, examines such disputes. The episode illustrates a recurring feature of urban sanitation: the need for a facility may be broadly acknowledged, while its location, management and perceived effect on a neighbourhood remain contested.
By 1921, the city was debating whether to construct underground public conveniences on the model of London. Municipal representatives viewed above-ground toilets as an eyesore that did not fit their vision of a modern metropolis. Supporters proposed an underground public convenience at Victoria Square, now Bhatia Bagh near Fort, before the expected visit of the Prince of Wales in 1922. The project did not proceed. Critics questioned whether substantial funds should be directed towards underground conveniences in affluent areas when densely populated working-class neighbourhoods lacked basic sanitation.
That debate remains relevant because it separated the appearance of civic modernity from the distribution of civic need. A public toilet can be judged as an amenity, a nuisance, a health measure or an infrastructure asset depending on who is using it and who is being asked to host or finance it. Mumbai’s current proposal similarly places the question of cost alongside the question of access.
After Independence, the sanitation challenge increasingly extended to informal settlements. In areas where overcrowding and limited space made individual household toilets difficult to provide, public and community facilities became central to sanitation provision. Government agencies, private operators and community organisations were involved in building and managing these facilities.
A significant shift took place in the 1990s, when community participation became central to sanitation programmes in slum settlements. In 1993, women pavement dwellers associated with Mahila Milan, working with the National Slum Dwellers Federation and SPARC, built a community toilet block on P D’Mello Road. The facility had four pour-flush latrines, a water tank and a caretaker’s room.
The model was subsequently expanded through the Mumbai Slum Sanitation Programme, implemented between 1996 and 2005 with World Bank assistance. A 2006 World Bank Water and Sanitation Program report said that 330 community toilet blocks, containing more than 5,100 toilet seats, had been constructed and handed over to community groups for use and maintenance. The programme was estimated to have benefited around 4,00,000 people in Mumbai’s slums.
The significance of this history is institutional. It shows that public sanitation has not been delivered through one stable model. Mumbai has moved between direct civic provision, private operation, community management and partnerships involving external assistance. Each model distributes responsibility differently. The BMC may build, regulate or manage a facility; an operator may collect fees and employ caretakers; community groups may oversee use and maintenance; and users may be expected to contribute directly at the point of service.
The proposed fee changes therefore raise a question about more than the amount paid by an individual. They concern how the city assigns the cost of keeping shared infrastructure functional. If operators retain the additional revenue, the proposal links maintenance capacity to collections at the facility. That may provide an immediate operating resource, but the supplied material does not establish whether the higher charges will be sufficient to cover costs, how collections are monitored or whether facilities differ substantially in their operating requirements.
The figures also show why a single pricing approach may have uneven effects. Mumbai’s 846 pay-and-use toilet complexes and approximately 8,173 community complexes form a large and varied system. The 3,110 community complexes managed by the BMC alone represent a substantial public responsibility, while other facilities involve private agencies, non-governmental organisations or community groups. The same charge can have different consequences for a daily-wage worker, a pavement dweller, a commuter or a resident of a settlement with few alternatives.
The report specifically identifies daily-wage workers, pavement dwellers and other users of public toilets as groups for whom even a small increase can add to everyday expenses. This is the core access issue in the proposal. A charge that appears minor in isolation becomes recurring expenditure for people who use public facilities regularly. At the same time, a facility that lacks reliable cleaning, water, electricity, repairs or caretaking cannot provide the public-health function for which it exists.
Mumbai’s sanitation experience consequently reveals a persistent policy tension. Keeping toilets free or very inexpensive may protect access but leave operators with inadequate resources. Raising fees may help cover operating expenses but increase the burden on people with the fewest alternatives. The historical record also shows that this tension cannot be resolved only through construction. Location, neighbourhood acceptance, management, maintenance and financing have repeatedly shaped whether sanitation infrastructure works in practice.
The available evidence confirms that the BMC’s proposal is part of a longer evolution in how Mumbai provides public sanitation. It also confirms that the city has a large and institutionally diverse toilet network whose functioning depends on continuous expenditure. What remains unclear from the supplied material is the final status of the proposal, the implementation timeline, the criteria for selecting facilities, and whether any protections or alternative arrangements are planned for users unable to absorb higher charges. Those details will determine whether the change strengthens the maintenance of public toilets or makes an essential service less accessible.
