Members of the transgenders community will now have access to public toilets exclusive to them in Delhi.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), in its annual budget 2021-2022, has decided to provide public toilets exclusively for the third-gender in the national capital.
HP Singh, a senior NDMC official dealing with the project, told news agency 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."
The under-construction toilet at Shastri Bhawan will be the first exclusive toilet for the people of the transgender community in Delhi.
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.
Delhi, despite being the Capital, has so far failed to provide exclusive toilets for trans-gender people.
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.