Better late than never, New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has finally decided to make toilet solely for the transgenders. The civic body has also proposed the same in its annual budget for 2021-22.

A senior NDMC official, H.P. Singh, said, "Construction of toilets exclusively for the third gender, especially in busy marketplaces, has been a long-pending demand from the transgender community in Delhi. Therefore, observing their requirement, the NDMC has constructed a toilet exclusively for the third gender at Shastri Bhawan."

He further said, "The NDMC has built the first toilet for third gender at Shastri Bhavan, which is yet to get in use. We are in the process to identify sites to construct a few more such toilets in the NDMC area."

"They are also allowed to use common toilets but many of them hesitate to use them due to many reasons and we must respect their priorities," Singh added.

Although there are a numerous number of transgender people living in many parts of Delhi, including Paharganj, Daryaganj, Burari, Subhash Park, Subhash Park and Laxmi Nagar, a toilet specifically for transgender has never been constructed so far by the Delhi authorities. The toilet that is under construction at Shastri Bhawan will be the first toilet in the national capital solely for the transgender community.

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India finally accepted transgender people as the third gender. The Center and the States had then ordered the establishment of separate toilets for the transgender people.

The first exclusive toilet for the transgender community was built in Mysuru. Following which, Bhopal in 2018 also made toilets solely for the community.

(With inputs from IANS)