It was a surprise that citizens would have least anticipated. Bengaluru was ranked the cleanest city of all State capitals in the recent Swach Bharath rankings. And though the medal of honour has its share of takers and critics, there is no debating that the garbage menace is topmost on the minds of voters.
Though we have come a long way from the 2012 Mandur crisis, the city’s garbage is still dumped at various new landfills that have cropped up subsequent to the protests and closure of Mandur and Mavallipura landfills. The city is unable to process its waste. It is dumped in surrounding villages, which has led to vociferous protests.
Processing our waste It is a well accepted fact that is high time that the city moves towards processing of wet waste and doing away with landfills. The BBMP has built six garbage processing units with a combined capacity of 1,800 tonnes of wet waste per day. There were protests against setting up these units too, but the BBMP is keeping its fingers crossed. The civic body hopes to be able to pull through with these six units and sees them as crucial to improving solid waste management.
Key to the success of any of these processing units is segregation of waste at source. Though segregation was made mandatory in 2012, it has not taken off. The constant refrain of citizens is that contractors mix even segregated waste, making it a wasteful exercise on their part.
Garbage mafia Activists working in the field of solid waste management say that the biggest challenge is to break the nexus between councillors and the ‘garbage mafia’. Both the Rajendra Kumar Kataria report (by a 10-member committee set up by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to probe alleged irregularities in the BBMP) and TVCC reports have exposed the unholy nexus and the resultant loss to the exchequer. The new contracts, under which a contractor would be fined for mixed waste, were seen as a corrective measure, but its success will depend on the newly elected council as well.
