The biomethanisation plant in Domlur is not the only wet waste
management centre that has shut down. Nine other plants commissioned in
2014 were shut down by the first week of January after a tussle between
the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and the contractor.

The
BMPP alleges that the contractor has not fulfilled its obligations,
while the contractor claims that they have not been paid dues of Rs.
21.09 crore since December 2013. However, it is the residents who are
the biggest losers in this fight, as wet waste which was handled locally
in these plants are now being transported many kilometres away.

“Monthly
payments have not been done for plants where proper maintenance is not
done,” said BBMP Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) Sarfaraz
Khan. “If they fail to function as per standard operating procedure, the
BBMP will take control of the plants. We will rope in residents’
welfare associations (RWAs) if they show interest in managing the
plants,” said Mr. Khan. The contractor, Ashoka Biogreen Pvt. Ltd., has
refuted these claims. In Varthur ward, where the plant never took off,
residents have long been campaigning for the plant to be made
functional.

‘We want the plant’

“We want a biogas
plant here as it would allow wet waste from at least two or three wards —
Varthur, Hagathur and Kadugodi — to be processed locally,” said Anjali
Saini, a member of Whitefield Rising, referring to the Varthur plant.
This will reduce the incidence of garbage on the streets, she felt, as
the pick-up vehicles could make trips in the evening as well. “At the
moment, they have to go almost 50 km to drop the waste, so an additional
trip is out of the question,” she explained. She felt the idea to bring
in the RWAs was ill-conceived. “Why can’t the BBMP manage it on its
own?”

In this case, the contractor claimed that the BBMP had not
ensured water and electricity connections to the Varthur plant for two
years.

In Koramangala, a plant that has been closed for the past
10 days had been processing commercial waste from nearby restaurants.
“It helped to manage the commercial waste and to light up lamps in the
compound. We are planning to set up a similar plant for handling
residential waste,” said Padmasree, president of the Koramangala RWA.

The
contractor used to pick up waste and take it to the plant, where
another level of segregation was undertaken before processing.

Padmasree,president of Koramangala RWA

If the contractor fails to function as per standard operating procedure, the BBMP will take control of the plants.

Sarfaraz Khan,Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management), BBMP