JOIN USThe Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will begin on Monday its much-hyped exercise of collecting segregated waste.
Segregation of garbage at source comes into effect from October 1 and is expected to help reduce the load on landfills and make the task of removing the piled-up garbage from the streets of the City. The 9,000 pourakarmikas (PKs), who will go door-to-door, will collect only wet waste or kitchen waste from the citizens and send them to the garbage collection points.
Citizens are expected to store the dry waste at the houses till the designated day of the week when the PKs will come to collect them for transportation.
According to BBMP Commissioner Rajneesh Goel, the Palike has already put in place a monitoring mechanism to keep a tap on the “black spots” in the City.
“We have already identified designated officers at the level of the assistant executive engineer to monitor the situation at each ward on the collection of waste. The officials have been appointed to receive complaints from citizens on the collection of the waste and also monitor the ward where the segregation has either failed or succeeded,” said Goel.
Contact details of the officials for each ward will be put up on the BBMP website from Saturday evening.
The designated officials will also report back to the zonal commissioners on waste collection in each ward, if they have been segregated or mixed with dry waste.
Sources in the BBMP state that the Palike will also be placing “monitors” to follow the PKs while collecting the garbage and identify the problems, if any, for every street in the City.
“The monitors will ensure brisk and proper collection of the segregated waste from the households,” said the Palike official.
The BBMP is also hoping to go online, at the end of each day, by placing information in the public domain on the amout of garbage collected and its transportation to the various landfills and compost sites.
For bulk generators, the BBMP is yet to devise a mechanism on clearing the waste they generate.
Bulk generators
According to BBMP, of the 4,000 tonnes garbage, 1,500 tonnes of garbage is generated by bulk generators daily. “The BBMP will approach bulk generators in a conciliatory manner and hope to create awareness with regard to the possible solutions to dispose their waste independently,” said Goel.
Palike officials state that the BBMP will not have a “rigid” system in place from day one for the bulk generators and collect the garbage in a segregated manner. “Eventually, they (bulk generators) will come around after we ensure strict regulations,” said another official.
The BBMP commissioner believes that the segregation-at-source system will take at least a month to stabilise and expects co-operation from the citizens. “We will be having continuous dialogues with resident welfare associations (RWA) and other stakeholders to successfully implement the policy,” said Goel.