HC seeks report from Palike on garbage

The High Court of Karnataka on Friday directed the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike to submit a report on the steps taken to tackle garbage crisis in the City.

During the hearing of a batch of petitions on garbage menace in Bangalore, the Division Bench comprising Justices

N Kumar and B V Nagarathna observed that mere acquisition of land to dump garbage would not solve the problem. “The Palike will have to take up steps to set up waste processing units for scientific disposal of garbage,” the Bench noted.

The Court directed the Palike commissioner to place before it, the reports of a panel headed by him and that of the technical committee headed chief engineer, before May 27.

The counsel for the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board submitted the report on the status of processing and disposal of municipal solid waste. The Board has found unscientific disposal of solid waste at the landfills and processing units of the Palike.

Notice issued

The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice B V Nagarathna has issued notices to the State government and the department of Women and Child Development for not providing basic facilities to anganwadi centres and its workers. The Court had taken up a suo motu public interest litigation following media reports about poor infrastructure at anganwadi centres. The Bench has also directed the government to file its objections to the petition.

CA site

The High Court has issued notice to the Bangalore Development Authority in a petition alleging allotment of a civic amenity (CA) site to a private company. Ramarao Layout Residents’ Association has approached the court accusing the BDA of violating the rules while allotting a CA site to a Laghu Udyog Bharati, a Maharashtra-based company. The petitioner has alleged that the firm located on a CA site was causing problems to the residents in the vicinity.

Time extended

The High Court has granted another four months to the Justice B Padmaraj Committee probing into irregularities in allotment of ‘G’ category sites by the Bangalore Development Authority during the period 2006 to 2009. The Division Bench headed by Justice K L Manjunath passed the order on an application filed by the committee seeking more time to submit its report. The Court had constituted the committee following a public interest litigation filed by Vasudev, alleging irregularities in allotment of ‘G’ category sites. The committee was to submit its report by April-end.