Google toilet locator app to be launched soon
Syed Ali Ahmed
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, November 30
Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) has decided to launch a Google toilet locator with a view to helping people find the nearest and cleanest toilets in cities and towns across India.
It will be a mobile application (app) called the ‘Swachh Bharat Toilet Locator’.
The facility, which will be available on Google Maps, will be piloted in the National Capital Region (NCR), Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon. It will be implemented on national-level on phased manner, said sources.
According to the sources, the app will offer two types of functionalities, an administrator version, which provided access to urban local bodies (ULBs) of the respective cities to add toilets to the app as well as verify them, and a citizen version, which provided toilet locations to urban users and enabled them to submit feedback after use of these toilets. The app is also expected to provide additional information such as quality rating, facilities available, free or paid usage.
“People will first need to open Google Maps, and then search for toilets near them. They can search for a variety of keywords, like ‘toilet’, ‘lavatory’, ‘swach’, ‘swachhata’, ‘shulabh’ or ‘shauchalay’, and Google will point them to the nearest toilets,” said sources.
The search can be similar to how people look for film theatres or restaurants on Google Maps.
