Grappling with excess garbage accumulated over the long weekend of festivals and holidays, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Monday started sending it to the landfill in Terra Firma in Doddabalapur.
One of the three major landfills in the city that has remained shut for over two months, reopening of this landfill may help alleviate the garbage crisis a bit, officials hope. BBMP officials said that most of the waste generated during the Dasara festivities had been cleared, while that generated over the weekend and Bakrid, running into several thousand tonnes, is now being cleared.
Freedom Park
While the garbage pile at Freedom Park, reported with outrage in sections of the media, got special treatment with BBMP workers swinging into action and cleaning over 300 tonnes — supervised by Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy — other areas were not as fortunate.
Take for instance the road near the Binny Mill compound: in no fewer than three places the garbage piles were at least eight feet high. Curiously, some elementary cleaning had been done around the pile to ensure it did not spill over to the street. But the pile stood there, a festering testament to the garbage crisis that has seized the city for weeks now, and to the general failure of the BBMP’s garbage segregation drive.
On Monday, however, despite it being an official holiday, Mr. Venkatesh Murthy held a meeting with Joint Commissioners from all zones. “The purpose was to understand each other’s responsibilities and come up with immediate solutions,” he told the media. He explained that every day 2,000 tonnes of waste is being left on the city’s streets.
Garbage tenders
On the eve of Tuesday’s BBMP Council meeting, when the issue of garbage tenders will be discussed, a team of BJP councillors held a meeting chaired by the former Mayor Nataraj. The existing contracts ends on October 31, and councillors will now have to decide whether to extend them or opt for fresh tenders. The BJP is reportedly divided on this issue with a section favouring extension to the contractors for another three months.
However, sources said, the meeting was inconclusive.
