Hyd cleaner than major cities

• Toilets at the railways stations are the dirtiest: Survey
• Kolkata tops dirties cities, followed by Mumbai, Chennai

Hyderabad: Hyderabad scored a brownie point on ‘Swachh’ upkeep. While a majority of travellers feel that railway stations across India have the dirtiest toilets, they gave good marks to Hyderabad in comparison with other major cities.

Nearly 90 per cent of travellers, who say that railway stations have stinking toilets, suggested to bring in a major toilet revolution in the country, which is witnessing “Swachh Bharat” campaign.

The survey conducted ahead of World Toilet Day, by a travel portal, has put Kolkata at the top in the overall ‘dirtiness quotient’ with 74 per cent of the people terming it the dirtiest city, followed closely by Mumbai (72 per cent) and Chennai (71 per cent). Hyderabad scored the lowest at 31 per cent. The survey has revealed that 88.31 per cent of travellers were of the view that toilets at railway stations needed major improvement, followed closely by toilets at public places in cities (87.9 per cent) and those at religious, heritage and tourist sites (79.17 per cent). The UN has dedicated November 19 as World Toilet Day to focus on critical health need for 2.5 billion people in developing countries including India for sanitary toilet conditions. Airports have the cleanest toilets, with only 11.02 per cent of the respondents feeling the need to improve them.

“Fifty-nine per cent of the people said none of the cities around the country had clean public toilets, while 49 per cent of them admitted to changing their travel plans -- from train to flight or bus because of unhygienic toilets,” the survey said. “Most people in India choose their travel destinations based on the restroom experience they can expect. This is especially true for women and even truer for mothers who shop or travel with small children,” it said.