Hundreds of policemen were deployed at Mandur with government planning to invoke Section 144 of the CrPC in the village to let the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) dump City’s waste at the landfill, in the face of vehement protests by the villagers of Mandur and ten surrounding villages on Sunday.
“We did not let a single truck enter the landfill in the past 72 hours and will continue to do so until the trucks turn back,” Chandrashekhar, a panchayat member at Mandur, told Deccan Herald.
The villagers asserted that they will not to allow dumping of the City's waste in the landfill.
The agitation disproved the claims that the impasse at Mandur was over and the villagers were letting the trucks to unload garbage at the landfill.
The agitation has left about 120 garbage-laden trucks stranded in and around Mandur.
The impasse comes at a time when the City is gearing up for two prominent festivals of Dasara and Bakrid.
The piling up of bio-waste generated during these two festivals may to lead to an epidemic outbreak in the City. Rain and cloudy weather have further compounded the problem.
The agitation has left thousands of tonnes of waste lying uncleared, leaving the City reeking badly. Leachates from these garbage heaps have got mixed in the ground water and have flowed into the water bodies.
Futile talks
A desperate State government and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) failed to break the logjam at Mandur on Sunday, despite several rounds of meeting by Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar with Deputy Chief Minister R Ashoka, MLA Aravind Limbavali, BBMP Commissioner Rajneesh Goel and the local panchayat members. Some officials went on to claim in the evening that many villagers were arrested at Mandur. The information was found to be wrong at the time this report was filed.
The BBMP commissioner who reportedly visited Mandur was shouted down by the protestors.
Home Minister R Ashoka said some people were trying to politicise the issue. Warning the agitators, Ashoka said: “People should stop their agitation, otherwise government will deal with them strictly.”
Meanwhile, even the BBMP’s project to set up a biomethanisation plant at Chintamani in Kolar district has been considered as non-feasible as the BBMP authorities fear a Mandur-like situation. Sources said the plant aimed at generating electricity using 1,000 tonnes of wet waste would drain the BBMP coffers, considering the cost of transportation to the site.