No money to pay sanitation workers, Palike tells High Court

 The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner M Lakshminarayana on Friday submitted to the High Court of Karnataka that the Palike does not have funds to clear the pending bills of garbage contractors and wages of pourakarmikas.

 He said that the Palike had not paid the bills for the past five months which amounts to nearly Rs 150 crore. The commissioner said that the Palike is still in the process of collecting property tax and would make the payments in the next two months. The submission was made during the hearing of a batch of petitions on garbage disposal in the City.

A division bench comprising Justices N Kumar and B V Nagarathna sought to know how the Palike could expect the pourakarmikas to work without paying them. The bench said that pourak­arm­ik­as come from lower socio-economic strata and that they were the ones who keep the City clean. It suggested the BBMP to seek help from the government to clear the pending bills at the earliest.

The court further added that the Palike must have a separate commissioner handling the finances to ensure that bills are cleared on time. A separate allocation must be made in the BBMP budget for garbage clearance. During the hearing, a petitioner submitted that the Palike was clueless about garbage clearance and the civic agency had been misleading the court with its reports on garbage disposal. The counsel for the petitioner, who subbmitted photographs of burning heaps of garbage, said that a major chuck of garbage was being burnt on the outskirts of the City.

‘Close down meat shops’

With Aero India 2105 schedul­ed from Feb 18 to 22 at the Yelahanka Air Force base, HC has directed the government to ensure that all meat shops in the vicinity suspend selling of meat as dumped meat waste was attracting birds. The direction was made as it would cause problems during the Aero Show.  The bench also directed the government to file cri­minal cases against offenders.