The civic body is trying to cover up the slow pace of work by proposing high-end toilets in the Capital though existing ones are in bad shape.

If one wants to check the positive impact of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Swachh Bharat campaign in the first year of its launch, Delhi is a strict no-go.

Despite leading a high-octane campaign and making tall promises, the BJP-ruled municipal corporations in Delhi have failed to construct a single toilet as part of the massive cleanliness drive.

As Modi's flagship project completes one year on August 15 this year, 112 under-construction toilets and a proposal for 94 other toilets is what the three civic bodies have to show to the people of Delhi.

Modi had announced the cleanliness drive from the ramparts of Red Fort on Independence Day last year. The Prime Minister had emphasised on building toilets in villages and slums to help stop people, particularly women, from defecating in the open.

As part of the mission, the three municipal corporations had not only planned construction of new toilets but also to renovate the existing toilets to discourage defecation in the open. However, the ground reality across the Capital presents a totally different picture. Their dilapidated condition has made public toilets barely usable. The stink and unhygienic condition of public toilets have also been a big deterrent to their prospective users.

The BJP has been ruling the civic agency for the past eight years and, in a year's time, it will again be facing another election. The municipal elections are due in early 2017, when the BJP will be fighting anti-incumbency while Arvind Kejriwal's AAP will launch its battle for entry into the local bodies.

In the North and East Delhi municipal corporations, 50 toilet blocks are under construction while only 12 toilets are being built by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. The SDMC has also made a proposal for another 94 toilets in due course of time. Official sources said it takes Rs 7-8 lakh to build a toilet block. The South Delhi corporation is constructing the toilet blocks under corporate social responsibility.

The leaders in MCD could not come up with any concrete reason for their poor performance, but sought to present a rosy picture. They claimed that they were in the process of constructing high-end toilets based on the publicprivate partnership (PPP) model.

Incidentally, the unified MCD had earlier burnt its fingers with the project of controversial waterless urinals in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games. While the three civic bodies are yet to make the waterless urinals operational, it has come up with a plan for similar high-end toilets.

North Delhi mayor Ravinder Gupta cited financial crisis as the reason for not being able to construct the toilets. "The construction of toilets should have been completed in less than six months, but the delay is primarily due to cash crunch," Gupta said.

On the construction of high-end toilets, he said the new project would not be a failure like the waterless urinals but rather generate revenue for the corporation. "In the next two weeks, the process of e-tendering will start. Before December this year, the toilet blocks would be ready for use. With guards and facilities for even the differently abled, these toilets will be similar to the toilet blocks abroad," Gupta claimed.

He admitted that the waterless urinal facility failed as these toilets were built in haste. "Crores of rupees were spent on these but loopholes like no connected sewer connection created a major trouble in their operation. People used to even steal toilet block sheets since there was nobody to look after them," he added.

"The municipal corporation is short on cash. It does not have funds to pay staff salaries, so how can it improve the condition of these toilets? The North MCD was supposed to build 30 womencentric toilets, but no action has yet been taken on that issue. No MCD councillor has been given funds since April to carry out development work in his ward. Crores of rupees were spent on advertising for waterless urinals, but the entire scheme failed miserably. It is a big scam," alleged Mukesh Goyal, leader of Opposition in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The RWAs also criticised the MCDs for their inability to construct new toilets. "There have been several shortcomings in the mission. It was carried out with zeal and vigour for only a few months, after which the whole focus on sanitation and public toilets was lost. It seems the MCDs would start focusing on this only when the elections approach. It is disappointing to see how the civic agency has failed to adhere to our Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat project," East Delhi RWAs Joint Front Federation president BS Vohra said.