HCM City authorities plan to include the location of public toilets on e-maps and improve toilet services in HCM City.

The vice chairman of the city’s People’s Committee, Tran Vinh Tuyen, has asked the Department of Science and Technology to carry out the task after a recommendation from a Tourism Department report.

The city has encouraged multiple hotels, restaurants and stores in central districts to allow tourists to use their restrooms.

However, authorities could not force them to put up toilet signs outside their front doors, Tuyến said.

“Their businesses might be detrimentally affected,” Tuyen said, adding that it would be better for authorities to include locations of public toilets and directions on tourism e-maps.

Tuyến has also encouraged authorities to improve public toilet services since many have not met sanitary standards. Automatic toilet services should also be considered.

Tourists as well as taxi drivers and local residents would benefit from better services, he said.

Le Thi Thanh My, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said that many of the city’s 208 public toilets were in inconvenient sites.

Public inconvenienced by lack of HCM City toilets

Despite Ho Chi Minh City having a population of 10 million and welcoming 2.1 million international tourists in the first five months, an increase by 13.5% compared to the same period last year, the city is far from welcoming when it comes to public conveniences, with just 200 pay toilets, of which 150 are already near unusable.

La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the Tourism Department said many attractions in the cities were lacking public toilets such as the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine or Soai Kinh Lam fabric market.

Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Tran Vinh Tuyen said as many public toilets were abandoned, becoming gathering spots for street gangs or drug addicts. Even the mobile public toilets used at festivals were also of low quality and unhygienic.

Since early this year, the authorities have fined over 1,500 cases of urinating in public and issued hundreds of warnings. First time violators have been fined USD9 and USD13 for a second offence.

Phan Trong Hung from the District 1 Urban Management Office said lack of decent public toilets was the cause of the problem.

"Building bridges and roads has been our top priorities but public toilets are also part of the infrastructure too. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment can call for private investment to build 1,000 toilets. In return, firms can be allocated land and have discount rental fees so that we can improve the city’s environment," he said.

VNS/Dtinews