Garbage mounds reappear in City

Garbage crisis has returned to haunt the Garden City as trucks transporting waste have been stuck at the landfills. Rain and protests have hampered unloading of garbage.

“Trucks could not unload garbage due to rain. Protests too contributed to the trouble,”said a BBMP official requesting anonymity. He added that the garbage clearance in the last two days was merely 60 per cent.

The Dasara and Deepavali season aggravates the problem due to an increase in garbage generation.

While the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has been somehow managing to keep the main roads in important locations clean, the interior areas of the City were in a state of mess with garbage mounds at every nook and corner, on Monday.

The situation was pathetic in  Shivajinagar, Pulakeshinagar, Devarajeevanahalli, Ittamadu, Sampangiram Nagar, Dasarahalli, Yelchenahalli, Konanakunte, Chamarajpet, Ilyas Nagar and Yarab Nagar.

No takers for segregation

To make the situation worse, the segregation of waste at source has become a big flop in many areas mainly because the contractors are not lifting garbage on a day-to-day basis.

In areas such as Pulakeshinagar, people said kitchen waste with non-vegetarian stuff could not be kept at home for more than two days as it may lead to health hazards.

Mohammad Younus, a resident of Pulakeshinagar, said, “We have no other option but to throw out kitchen waste if the garbage collector does not turn up even for a day, and in our area he shows up only once in three days.”

 He alleged that garbage has not been lifted for the last one month at certain locations in the area.

Kushalnagar corporator Noor Jahaan said garbage collection was a failure in her ward. Waste is collected in some areas only once in three days.

“The garbage contractor keeps complaining about his uncleared bills and lack of  manpower. Altogether there are only 18 people, including the drivers, to clear garbage in the entire ward. We are also confronting acute shortage of vehicles too,” she said.

SWMs as dumping yard

With irregular collection of segregated garbage, stormwater drains have turned out to be the most preferred destination to dispose of waste. In many areas, the SWMs have choked badly.

Manohar, a resident of HMT Layout, complained that a stormwater drain and vacant sites in his area have become the most common places to dump  waste.

Chokkasandra corporator Muniswamy said there was acute shortage of tippers and auto-rickshaws for the door-to-door collection of waste.

“Presently, we have seven autorickshaws which are insufficient to collect garbage from all the areas of our ward. We need at least 18 autorickshaws,” he said.

Chamarajpet corporator B V Ganesh attributed the garbage crisis to lack of planning, and not leaving enough space for landfills.