Enough to eat, but few toilets
Item
Title
Enough to eat, but few toilets
Description
SINGHU BORDER (SONIPAT): The protesting farmers, who braved water cannon and teargas shells to get here and stood like a rock for a full month of siege, now face a camp overrun by waste and human refuse. The reason—not enough toilets. The shop toilets opened to them with welcoming signs are inadequate for a 10-kilometre-long file of users. Installed 500 metres apart, even the NGOs’ mobile toilets don’t suffice. If these were 150 metres apart, some of the problem could be solved. To ward off infection, they self-clean with mineral water. The proof is in the defecation sites littered with empty plastic bottles. Open defecation is rife. The site’s only petrol pump, which doubles as night shelter, has long queues outside its toilets. Useful otherwise, the site’s medical camps have run out of sanitary pads. Bathinda farm unionist Ramandeep Singh Maan said: “For the farmers, these are usual hardships, yet we have deployed more volunteers to keep the campsite clean.” The winter’s no problem though. For surviving it, they have body warmers, shoes, warm socks, blanket, mattresses, and even thick jackets, which the seniors get first. They even have enough dry rations to last six months. The grain is stored around the protest site, in buildings and hotels under round-the-clock watch. The supply from Punjab and Haryana keeps coming. The farmers who stay the longest also get to go home in between. The rotation policy continues.
Publisher
The Times of India
Date
2020-12-26
Coverage
Chandigarh