Darpan Jain asked to submit garbage status report

The High Court on Thursday directed Darpan Jain, Special Commissioner appointed by the State government for solid waste management in Bangalore, to submit a report to the court about the status of garbage disposal in the City.

A division bench comprising Justice N Kumar and Justice B V Nagarathna hearing a batch of petitions on garbage disposal asked the Special Commissioner to go through all the court orders and objections filed by the parties in the court. The bench directed him to conduct a spot inspection of all the landfills and submit details on the expenditure and the revenue earned by the Palike through garbage disposal and the hardships faced in disposal, in the next hearing on July 17.

During the hearing, D Satyamurthy, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Urban Development, submitted that with the available technology for bio-mining, only incineration of the garbage is possible in Mandur but there is a ban on burning of garbage. The bench wanted to know with 25 lakh tonnes of garbage dumped at Mandur, how the government would clear it.

No more dumping

Dumping must be stopped as it is not a permanent solution, the bench observed. The judge said though the chief minister and the chief secretary are involved in the City’s garbage disposal, nothing is happening on the ground and everybody is laughing about it.

With regard to Mavallipura landfill, BBMP had issued an order not to pay any ‘tipping fee’ to Ramky till it disposes all the garbage that is piled in the landfill.

Another company, Organic Waste contended that additional land was to be allotted to it to set up civil structures for garbage disposal plans. To this, the bench observed that everyone was only interested in land and not in disposing of the garbage.

On questioning about the segregation of garbage at source, Justice Nagarathna observed that a separate set of contractors and pourakarmikas must be hired to dispose wet and dry waste separately. This will ensure that garbage segregation happens at source.