It's the same old story of Bengaluru, the garbage city

As protests go on near landfills, BBMP looks at plastic ban for relief

Bengaluru’s garbage problem, which was temporarily resolved after the waste-processing unit at Mandur was shut last year, is likely to resurface sooner than later.

At stake is the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) preparedness to manage garbage after Deepavali. It is still struggling to clear the large amounts of garbage generated during the Dasara festival last month.

No sooner had the BBMP sorted out the Mandur issue than public protests erupted at the S Bingipura landfill site. The civic agency was forced to reduce the amount of garbage it was dumping there.

At present, the two waste-processing centres located in Doddaballapur taluk and run by Terra Firma and MSGP are burdened with the major share of Bengaluru’s garbage.

K J George, who recently became Bengaluru Development Minister, on Wednesday urged people living near the Doddaballapur landfill sites to end their protests. But the protestors refused to budge.

Bengaluru Urban district in-charge minister Ramalinga Reddy and Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy, who had promised to solve the garbage problem after Dasara, have failed to keep their word.

Bengaluru generates up to 4,000 tonnes of garbage every day. As old landfill sites and new waste-processing units have been shut following public protests, the City is sitting on a big garbage time bomb, a senior official in the BBMP said on the condition of anonymity.

Seven processing units

“It’s just politics. The garbage problem can be solved if minister Ramalinga Reddy and MLAs R Ashok and Aravind Limbavali don’t create such a fuss. There are seven waste-processing units in Bengaluru which no other city in India has,” the official added.

All these units are functioning on an experimental basis and not being allowed to function with a clear strategy, the official said, recalling how an expensive machine at the Seegehalli waste-processing unit was damaged by miscreants.

“We have sought police help to protect other processing units. If all the garbage is sent to the waste-processing units instead of the landfill sites, there will be no garbage problem in Bengaluru,” he said.