Bengaluru: Anchepalya residents grapple with garbage and burning waste

Heaps of garbage and a foul stench have become part of daily life for residents of Anchepalya in north Bengaluru. As a result, garbage burning has become a common occurrence in the neighbourhood.

For Akshata Badrinath and her four-year-old son, who have been residing in an apartment in the neighbourhood for three years, watching people dump garbage along the road has become a daily ritual. “Every day, as I drop my son to school, he notices the amount of garbage and the people who are dumping it by the roadside. We moved to this neighbourhood because it was further away from the city and surrounded by greenery. I wanted my son to see the colours of nature, but all he gets to see from the apartment are heaps of garbage being burnt every day,” she said.

The garbage problem in the locality has worsened over the past six months, according to residents. “I’ve noticed that in the last six months, the waste problem has exploded all of a sudden. Earlier, there were pockets where garbage dumping occurred, but it wasn’t as prevalent along the entire road. There has been a big residential boom in the neighbourhood, and we believe that is adding to the problem,” said Ravi Subramanyam, who moved to the neighbourhood a year and a half ago from Mumbai.

A 1,200 sq ft apartment in the locality, which would have cost between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 53 lakh three years ago, now stands at Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore.

The neighbourhood is a contrast of larger-than-life apartment complexes, gated communities, and smaller informal settlements. Residents of apartment complexes fear that waste from a few apartments is being dumped by the roadside, as apartment authorities have not maintained transparency about garbage disposal practices.

For residents with independent homes, the lack of routine garbage pickup remains the biggest concern. “Our lane is too narrow, so the garbage van skips our lane. We have no other option but to dump all our waste in the corner of the street. Every few days, a pourakarmika comes and burns the garbage,” said Farzana S.

No waste sorting facility

While the neighbourhood is witnessing a residential boom, amenities in the locality have not been upgraded to accommodate the developments, Narasimhamurthy N, president of Kumbalgodu Gram Panchayat, told DH.

“We’ve been given 2.5 acres of land to build a waste sorting and recycling facility, but due to the lack of an access road, we haven’t been able to build the facility. We’re currently dumping the waste there, but if it rains, the trucks get stuck. Plus, some of the neighbouring buildings have encroached upon part of the land. We’ve raised the issue with our MLA, and it is being sorted out,” he told DH, adding that the facility is likely to be developed in the next nine to 10 months.

The panchayat is also taking steps to raise awareness about proper garbage disposal. On Saturday, the panchayat, residents, and the government school in the area came together to organise a ‘Hasiru Habba’, which featured the launch of ‘Hasiru Hejje Swacha Usiru’, a citizens’ collective in Kumbalgodu.