Palike begs Mandur people to allow garbage dumping

Pushed to a corner by the closure of the Mavallipura and Mandur landfills, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Tuesday frantically searched for an alternative site to dump the garbage.

While the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) sought an urgent action plan to dispose of the unprocessed garbage heaps in Mavallipura within two days, the Palike dumped 1,200 tonnes garbage to the third dump yard, managed by the privately-owned Terra Firma, which has a capacity of only 400 tonnes.
 
But trouble is brewing here too. On August 30, villagers close to Terra Firma on Doddaballapur-Bangalore road, have called for a road blockade. Across party lines, leaders are reportedly backing the proposed protest.

Across the City, the mounting piles of garbage continued to pose a severe problem for the eighth day, with residents of Mandur refusing to accept the wastes from the City.

Their blockade continued through the day. The residents dug up a wide and deep trench across the road to stop the garbage trucks from entering Mandur. BBMP officials and the police requested the local residents to allow waste dumping till some alternative arrangements were made, but their efforts went in vain. The fire, which the villagers had allegedly lit on the garbage heap on Monday, continued to simmer.

As a stop-gap arrangement, BBMP Mayor D Venkateshmurthy said the Palike has identified 200 acres of land on Bannerghatta Road as a dumping yard. “Once we get the permission from the KSPCB and the State Government for other landfills, we will clear the entire garbage from the City,” he said.

Deploying 246 garbage trucks, the BBMP was forced to remove only portions of the garbage in the City.

Palike officials state that there would be minimal transportation of the garbage from the City to Terra Farma and Mandur, despite opposition. “There has been some talks between the local MLA and the villagers to allow at least a few trucks,” said a Palike official.

As for the Mavallipura landfill, KSPCB stuck to its stand, refusing to revoke its decision to not permit dumping. At a meeting with BBMP’s new Commissioner, Rajneesh Goel, the member secretary for KSPCB, S M Puttabuddhi, asked the BBMP to come up with an action plan to dispose of the unprocessed garbage at Mavallipura.

“We have asked the BBMP to first clear the existing garbage. We had also written a letter with this regard in July, but Palike is yet to reply. The processing unit at Mavallipura can process just around 200 metric tonnes of garbage and the BBMP was dumping more than 600 metric tonnes there,” he added.

The action plan sought by the KSPCB would also have to address long term strategies to tackle hygiene problems faced by the villagers in the vicinity of these dumping yards. At the meeting, a total ban on plastic and mandatory segregation of garbage at source were also proposed. The Mayor said he will be ask Ramky Enviro Engineers to resume garbage processing. Another meeting has been called on Wednesday to sort out the Mavallipura issue.