Poor sanitation facilities plague DU Arts Building

Every day long queues are seen in front of the seven toilets for 6,000 female students at Dhaka University's Arts Building, revealing an appalling condition of its sanitation facilities.

Not only does the building lack enough women's toilets but the existing seven are located on two floors -- five on the ground and two on the third floor of the six-storey building -- making their access to sanitation even more difficult. 

The case however is different for 8,500 male students as there are 17 lavatory blocks with 34 toilets for them and each of the blocks has three urinals additionally.

Though women make up 41 percent of the total students of the Arts Building, 857 female students have to share one toilet when it is one for 250 male students.

Maliha Sultana Ohi, a second-year student of mass communication and journalism, said because of the queue, many often ignored the need to go to the toilet.

Besides the toilets are not cleaned properly, and there is a scarcity of soaps most of the time, added Momtaz Monowara, a fourth-year student of international relations.

When taps or other sanitary equipment get damaged, the authorities do not even bother to repair them timely, she said.

After all this, the women's toilets can at least be used regularly but 12 of the 34 toilets for male students remain unusable because of the broken pans and commodes.

Visiting the 65,000 sq ft Arts Building which houses 28 departments, this correspondent found that all the lavatory blocks are located beside classrooms and most toilet doors are broken.

Sohel Rana, a master's student of information science and library management, said most of the time it became impossible for them to concentrate in class because of malodour coming from the toilets.

Of the blocks, five are on the ground floor, four on the first floor, three on the second floor, two each on the third and fourth floor, and one on the fifth floor.

In addition, many students complain of not having soaps in the toilets and inundation of the hallways due to the clogging of the sewerage system. There are also complaints that the toilets are not cleaned properly.

Mokbul Hossain, supervisor of the building, said 10 cleaners were responsible for cleaning the toilets in the building twice every day -- at 8:00am and 1:00pm.

"It's hard to keep them clean with only 10 cleaners. The number of students has increased manifold but the number of cleaners has not in the last 45 years," he added. However, the supervisor claimed that the cleaners clean the toilets with water twice every day and with bleaching powder once a week.

A three-litre phenyl pack is provided to each cleaner every month, and it is not possible to afford more of the cleaning agent with only Tk 25,000 allocated yearly for the purpose of cleaning toilets and repairing sanitary equipment, he said.

He also alleged that students often kept broken Phensedyl bottles and syringes inside the water tank of the flush, so the cleaners did not want to clean those places to avoid getting their hands cut.

Acknowledging the funding shortage, Vice Chancellor Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique said a Tk 10 crore project was launched to modernise the Arts Building.

He hoped that the toilet problem would be solved once the project was completed. However, he could not specify the time and denied that there was a shortage of cleaners.

"The students should also know how to keep the toilets clean and usable," he said.