VOC Park is an important destination for the people of Coimbatore to spend their evenings with family and children. Every weekends the place is thronged with thousands of people to relax their weekends by entertaining the children at the zoo, play area and the ground filled with eateries and ice-cream vendors.
Through the year, the grounds at the VOC park hosts exhibitions, political and religious meetings, sporting and many more events. Also, a landmark venue for hosting officials celebrations like Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations.
The VOC grounds,park and the zoo are under the maintenance of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC). Repeated complaints of poor sanitation issues have been raised by the public over the years. Despite of ten toilets made available for the public usage, not even a single toilet is seen in a usable state.
Left with no option, women and children who visit the park and the VOC grounds are forced to relieve themselves in the open. Though there are 10 toilets - both Pay and use toilets and toilets constructed under the 'Namma Toilet' scheme, none of them are in usable condition.
A parent of a 5-year old child who visits the park regularly stated that 'There are two toilets inside the park. But most of the time, one of the toilet is locked all the time. The other one is doorless. It becomes very difficult for the women to manage the situation. That's the reason children are made to pass urinals in the open'.
An engineer said “The senior citizens park at the VOC park is spread on a area of 2 acres. In the morning the park is open from 4 am to 9 am and in the evening the park is open from 4 pm to 8 pm. It has a walking track, drinking water facility, 20 seats and separate toilets for men and women. The walking track is illuminated with 20 LED lights. Lawns are watered using a bore well. The contract for the maintenance works of the park have been given to a private Contractor Mani. About 10 people are working for the maintenance of the park” he said.
To the contrary, the real-time situation of the park is totally opposite. It was found that there are no facilities for the senior citizens, there are two toilets inside the park for senior citizens, one of them was locked and another was in a state of disrepair. The open toilet did not have water facility and there are no lights in this toilet. People are seen covering their nostrils due to the stench emanating from the toilets.
'World Toilet day' was observed last week during which awareness programmes were conducted for the people in rural areas insisting on sanitation standards and hygiene. VOC Park which lies in the heart of the city is void of basic sanitation standards and is encouraging open defecation all around the place. The people have raised their concern that the CCMC should pay attention to improve the sanitation issues at this place and safeguard the toilet users from infectious diseases spreading through open defecation.