Google has rolled out a new feature to Google Maps that will allow people to find public toilets around them. Starting today, the service has gone live in National Capital Region (NSR) and Madhya Pradesh.
Google has worked closely with the Ministry of Urban Development to add location, address and opening hours of over four thousand communal and public restrooms to Maps. The initiative comes from the company with an aim to provide easy access to information to people in India and help improve sanitation.
Google Maps currently boasts of more than four thousand public toilet listings covering Delhi NCR including Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Users can look out for toilets around them on both on the mobile app as well as on desktop. This service will be accessible to users both in English and Hindi language.
Using the key word ‘Swachh Public Toilet’, users can access 5,162 public toilets located near malls, hospitals, bus and railway stations, fuel stations, metro stations and public and community toilet complexes in the five cities in NCR and 703 in Bhopal and 411 in Indore. Google said the Ministry of Urban Development plans to continue to provide information about public restrooms for more cities.
Sanket Gupta, Product Manager, Google Maps, said,
When you search for “public toilet” on Google Maps in an area where the service is available, you’ll see a list of restrooms near you, including the respective address and opening hours. For instance, if you’re traveling on the national highway 8 in Gurugram, locating a public toilet can be challenging and most often the only option is going to nearby restaurants and cafes. Having this information handy can make things much easier.