The Deccan Chronicle 04.08.2010
What a waste! Bengaluru’s garbage plan still in the bin
Visit the so-called upmarket shopping centres like Commercial Street and Brigade Road at any time of the day and you are greeted with loads of rubbish on the roadside. Travel further to some of the suburbs and the stench is unbearable from the heaps of garbage that find their way on to the streets, attracting mosquitoes, stray dogs and cows.
Introduced with great of fanfare some years ago, door-to-door garbage collection does not seem to be working well in a number of neighbourhoods as the rubbish still finds its way on to the streets. The absence of dustbins makes things only worse as garbage is allowed to rot in the open. People are so fed up with diseases that the garbage throws up that they came out on the streets to protest the death of a 15-year-old boy in Mavallipura when it was reported he died of dengue.
Some 30 per cent of the 3,200 metric tonnes of garbage which the city generates every day, is dumped in various street corners and open drains, according to estimates. But this does not seem to bother BBMP, content with its schemes on paper, that don’t seem to serve the purpose of keeping the city clean. Even election of corporators doesn’t seem to be helping matters as they too don’t seem to think there is a problem to be solved.
But Jayamahal corporator M.K. Gunashekar blames BBMP engineers for the poor garbage collection. He claims there is an unholy nexus between contractors and BBMP engineers in garbage management. “Although environmental engineers are supposed to oversee garbage maintenance, the money is released by other engineers who have nothing to do with it,” he alleges observing that the garbage disposal system itself is unscientific, with plastic waste being allowed to choke drains. He points out that BBMP should be relying only on competent contractors for garbage disposal and using scientific dumping yards to treat the rubbish the city generates.
Dr Meenakshi Bharath who is playing a vital role in garbage segregation in Malleswaram, has a very useful suggestion to make, which could help keep the rubbish off the streets, defeating any garbage scams that may be afoot. People must be taught to turn their garbage into compost which can be used in the parks and gardens of Bengaluru, she says.
“BBMP must fund forming of compost pits in parks and grounds. Dry waste like leaves and waste paper can be processed into manure and used for gardening,” she rightly points out, also suggesting that people should be encouraged to segregate their waste before disposing of it by BBMP. “Pourakarmikas too must be trained to segregate the garbage they collect,” she adds.
