The Hindu 01.07.2013
12 wards to go zero garbage from today
Project was supposed to be taken up in 30 wards
The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP)
ambitious Zero Garbage project, which was to have begun in 30 wards from
Monday, will be taken up only in 12 wards.
The project will be launched by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at National College grounds in Basavanagudi.
BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayan told
The Hindu
on Sunday that the BBMP had entered into a tie-up with the Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) in these wards.
The project would be taken up in the remaining wards shortly.
“We
cannot take up the project in all the wards at once. For it to become a
success, the citizens must first segregate waste at source,” he said.
Push for participation
Towards
educating the citizens to segregate waste at source, the BBMP will
distribute pamphlets to all the homes in the select wards. The
pourakarmikas will inform individual households, while the officials
have been instructed to take the residents’ welfare associations into
confidence. The BBMP will closely work with self-help groups,
non-governmental organisations and ragpickers’ associations.
The
civic body has for long been planning the implementation of the zero
garbage project. In February, the BBMP announced that the project would
be taken up in 50 wards on a pilot basis. This announcement was made
during the week-long waste exposition — Wake Up, Clean Up Bengaluru. The
former BBMP Commissioner Siddaiah had announced the pilot project would
test effective solid waste management practices and that the BBMP would
implement it successfully by taking all the stakeholders into
confidence. The number of wards was then decreased to 31 and later to
30.
Several experts have noted that segregation of
waste at source is the only viable solution to the city’s garbage
problem. With the recycling and processing of dry waste — plastic, paper
and metal — the quantum of garbage going to the landfills will reduce
substantially.
While the BBMP’s plans may seem good
on paper, it seems that it will take longer than anticipated for the
civic body to actually implement on ground.