Toilet troubles

The Rs 35 lakh bill that the Planning Commission ran up to renovate two toilets may be old news but it was a popular topic for speakers last week from different groups who descended on Jantar Mantar but otherwise have little in common. Sanjay Singh, a Team Anna member, cited it to show the contrast between the “poverty of crores of people who live on Rs 17 a day while a toilet costs so much just to repair”. Nearby at an agitation staged by Left parties, the same example was cited by a Communist Party leader to lament the government’s reluctance to distribute surplus and often rotting food grain among the poor.