A city laid to waste

Post the festive season, the pathways and sidewalks of the City are littered with trash and debris.

The BBMP might have promised to handle the garbage situation during the festive season, but it has evidently not been successful in doing so.

In fact, Bangaloreans say that they are getting tired of the false promises made by the BBMP.

“This is perhaps the tenth promise that they have made in a span of four months. With the arrival of every festival comes a new promise by the civic body. It’s time that they fulfil their previous promises instead of making new ones.

The City is full of garbage — even on some of the important roads, like Residency Road and Church Street, which are full of tourists, you can see garbage strewn all around,” says Lakshmi, a professional.

Bangaloreans also feel that there has been no improvement in the garbage management during or after the festive season. “During Dasara, there was no improvement in the garbage situation.

The same was the case during Deepavali — the garbage was all over the City and the BBMP made no efforts to clean up the mess. We thought waste segregation might solve the problem but there is no improvement. The situation has gone from bad to worse,” explains Sudha, a student.

“Garbage could be seen all over Church Street and Ulsoor during the festive season. There is so much talk about Bangalore being a garbage city — and yet, there is nothing that the BBMP is doing about it. All their tall claims about clearing garbage before the onset of the festive season was an eyewash,” says Reben, a professional.

The BBMP officials, however, say that they are doing their best that they can to rid the City of garbage. “The commissioner is addressing the issue and we are going all out to clean the City,“ informs SS Khandre , the public relations officer, BBMP.

Sujata, an expert in waste management with an NGO, says that the BBMP has not tackled the issue at various levels properly and hence, the garbage issue continues. “Before October, the BBMP was stressing on waste segregation. However, post October, there has been no stress on it.

Moreover, the civic body has not implemented the segregation at various phases. After the segregated waste is collected, it is again mixed in the lorries. Citizens have lost interest in the whole procedure,” she concludes.