High Court pulls up BBMP over piling garbage

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday lashed out at the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara
Palike (BBMP) for the piling up of garbage in the City and directed the civic agency to file a status report on garbage segregation on November 6, 2012.

Hearing two public interest litigations, by Kavitha Shankar, a resident and G R Mohan, a City-based advocate and a party-in-person, ­the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen and Justice B V Nagarathna, expressed dissatisfaction over functioning of the BBMP. It also heard an appeal by some garbage contractors who were unable to participate in the new bidding stating that sufficient time was not allotted for the tender process by the Palike.

Counsel for the contractors, Lakshminarayana, seeking to set aside the tender process, said that the process was of short duration and it violated the Transparency Act. Pointing out that the single judge in September had ordered to restart the old tender process, he said that, instead, the BBMP had initiated a fresh tender process.

The Chief Justice expressed his displeasure when the BBMP’s lethargy in identifying the landfill site was brought to his notice.

“Where is the land for landfill as submitted in the earlier hearing? We need to send some of them behind bars. Some of your officials should be put in those landfills. You don’t seem to be serious in resolving this other than passing the buck.” Warning the BBMP of superseding it, the Court said, “If you can’t solve problems, you have no business to be there.”

Mohan, in his submission,  blamed the corporators for the mess and said that it is their effort to favour some of the contractors, which is leading to mounting garbage problems.
“Then we will dump garbage before their house, then we will see,” the Chief Justice said.
The bench then directed the BBMP Commissioner Rajanesh Goel to be present before the court in the afternoon. Goel, who appeared before the court submitted that the Palike was not imposing any fine for not segregating garbage and said that nearly 35 per cent of the City population was segregating waste and the percentage would soon reach 60 per cent.  

Tendering format

He also submitted that tendering process would be expedited. When it was submitted that the BBMP decision to collect dry waste for a day in a week is not sufficient, the bench suggested that the tendering format should be extended for two days. The Commissioner also assured the bench that after the process is completed, the BBMP would ensure that the garbage is transported without touching the ground.