As city grows, BBMP stares at piles of crises

The tech capital of India has a population of about 12 million now which is expected to surge to 20 million by 2031. Will the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) be able to manage solid waste with this growing capacity? That remains the biggest concern for the residents of the city.

“According to statistics projected by the draft of Revised Master Plan-2031 prepared by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), the population of the city is expected to reach 20 million,” said BBMP Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad.

At present, the city generates close to 5,700 metric tonnes of waste, out of which close to 4,200 metric tonnes is wet waste and about 1,200 is dry waste.

With the growing population and according to projections by the BDA, the amount of garbage is expected to be more than double of today’s capacities.

Close to 13,911 metric tonnes of garbage will be generated by 2031, as nearby villages will also be included in city limits.

Plans galore, but...

Though the BBMP has an excellent plan to collect and process waste, it has failed to implement it, said solid waste management expert Sandhya Narayan, who is also a member of the Solid Waste Management Round Table.

“The BBMP has several plans, including the microplan, dry waste collection, and waste processing plants that process garbage at ward levels. But none of them is being implemented. It has to be looked into why they are not able to implement them,” she said.

Manjunath Prasad said, “We have studied that the city will have a population of close to 20 million. The projections are done by considering both the core and outer areas. We are trying to strengthen the process of collection and transportation of garbage in the city. We are setting up transfer stations across the city which will bring in mechanised process in the entire exercise. We are also looking at establishing dry waste collection centres in all wards.”

The transfer station will also compress the waste once collected and reduce the capacity to half, as most of the wet waste consists of moisture, he said.

He also cited several reasons why the civic body is failing to enforce solid waste management rules. “There is a lot of resistance some time as the contractor lobby is very strong. For instance, they want to run the dry waste collection centres and take over the autos that go for dry waste collection. We are trying our best to root out this, and the abolition of contract system for pourakarmikas is one such example,” he said.