Parade ground toilets face food court kitchen!

KOCHI: The renovation of the public toilets on the Parade Ground at Fort Kochi had brought a sigh of relief to the locals. But even before the toilets could be used, the structure is now the stage for fresh disputes. Residents blame the inappropriate location of the toilets and the faulty architecture for the  mess. Under the new construction, the toilet is attached to the food court which was earlier constructed by the tourism department. One of the windows of the toilet opens into a space in the food court. “How can a toilet face a kitchen? Besides the people in the food court can easily see people coming out of the toilets”, says the Councillor Antony Kureethara. But the owners of the Food Court deny that the kitchen would be operational. “The space is not a kitchen. The granite slab is built to store items. The space between the food court and the kitchen was a site for amoral activities, and that was the reason why a wall was built to enclose it,” argues the owner of the Food Court, Gaffur.Another wall built on the other side of the toilet is also a cause for concern. The wall has given rise to a space which is enclosed on  three sides and faces a weeded ground on the other. This people fear will breed more anti-social elements. “The root cause is the location. There are hardly any tourists visiting this area as there are no real attractions. The area at the back continues to be weedy. `35,000 was spent a couple of months back on it but it continues to be overgrown with plants. Since the counter of the shop opens to these weeds, people only come here during the day. By six in the evening the area is deserted. Since we don’t have any business we close down our shops. After that, there are all sorts of anti-social activities here,” says Manikantan Nair who owns a shop next to the food court.