Officials get earful from CM over festering garbage crisis

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday is understood to have given a dressing-down to top officials of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), including eight joint commissioners, for failing to handle the garbage disposal crisis in the City.

The government is under severe pressure to immediately attend to the garbage dumping issue with the Mandur residents protesting and stopping lorries from unloading the City’s garbage in the village. The day he took oath as chief minister in May last, Siddaramaiah had announced he would solve the problems related to garbage within six months. At an unscheduled meeting of officials of the BBMP to discuss, among others, the garbage imbroglio, Siddaramaiah is said to have asked the joint commissioners to stand up.

Then, according to sources, the tongue-lashing began. “I am ashamed to see your faces. Because of your failure in handling the garbage crisis, the government is cutting a sorry figure. Because of your mistakes, I am being blamed. How thickskinned can you be,” he is said to have told the officials.Siddaramaiah also took exception to the poor revenue collection by the BBMP and illegal constructions coming up in the City.

The joint commissioners are senior officers in charge of each of the eight zones of the BBMP – South, West, East, Mahadevapura, Dasarahalli, Yelahanka, Bommanahalli and Rajarajeshwarinagar.CM lividThe barrage continued with Siddaramaiah asking the officials to give an account of what they did that morning. “Where did you go? You utilise facilities like car and mobile phones from the government but do no work.”When an official could not reply to Siddaramaiah queries, he curtly asked him why he had not come prepared. “What do you think this is? Your father-in-law’s place?”The officials remained standing throughout the meeting.

 The chief minister said he would give them three months’ to set right all mistakes.Another meeting would be held in the first week of October and progress report sought. “If you come to me with excuses, you will be sent home,” Siddaramaiah said. He also gave them a week’s time to ensure that potholes in Bangalore are filled.

Later, briefing reporters, Bangalore Urban District in-charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy said joint commissioners will be held responsible for any lapses in garbage disposal. “They will have to be in the field by 6.30 am. If they fail to discharge their duties effectively, they will be transferred. We will also not hesitate to suspend them,” he said.