On 25th May 2013 three precast individual toilets were installed by Larsen & Toubro in Khulewadi, Pune. As part of the city-wide slum sanitation project Shelter Associates have been exploring technologies which could be beneficial to the installation of the 1,500 individual toilets required by the project. Shelter Associates met with Larsen & Toubro at their office in Andheri East (Mumbai) to discuss the design of an individual toilet which would be made out of precast concrete. Following this meeting Shelter Associates were invited by Larson & Toubro to visit their precast concrete factory in Khopoli (approximately half way between Pune and Mumbai) to inspect the prototype prior to on-site trials.
Three precast concrete individual toilets were then installed in Khulewadi and the following issues were observed: (1) the structure is designed to a very high specification and therefore is almost twice the cost of the current brick and mortar solution. (2) The units were not easy to install as the base was cast as one piece which was 1m2 and very heavy to lift. (3) The precast individual toilets cannot be wheeled through narrow lanes which is a major drawback as the majority of the lanes in slums are narrow therefore this design would only be applicable in a minority of situations.
