Commuters and pedestrians using Shobha Tent Main Road here have to vie for space, though it is not with each other. With mounds of garbage lying uncleared on the road, there is little space left for both motorists and pedestrians.
Banu Yacoob (name changed), a resident of Shamanna Garden who regularly uses that road, claimed that the garbage has not been cleared for the past eight days.
“The main road connects Mysore Road near Gali Anjaneya Temple and connects Padarayanapura, Hosahalli and Vijayanagar. The area is densely populated and fairly commercialised. The garbage clearance is poor and mounds lie uncleared for days on end,” he said.
There are three schools in the vicinity and schoolchildren are forced to walk on the garbage to get to their houses. The residents fear that they may contract some contagious disease with exposure to garbage.
Arif Pasha, a resident and an autorickshaw driver, said that the pourakarmikas cannot be blamed, since the lorries and autorickshaws that pick up garbage do not come to collect the garbage that is piling on the roads. “The pourakarmikas pick up garbage from our houses. However, this is dumped on the road (bridge on Vrushabhavathi nala) and is not cleared for many days,” he complained.
Since the garbage clearance is poor, house owners in the area complained that finding tenants had become difficult. “No body wants to live here. I have slashed down the rent and yet there are no takers for the vacant house on the first floor,” said Kumaran P., a house owner.
A pourakarmika, on the condition of anonymity, said that neither the autorickshaw nor the lorry had come to clear the garbage. “Where are we supposed to dump it? If we do not clear it from the houses, we get lambasted by the residents. We are again blamed for the garbage lying on the roads for no fault of ours,” he said.
When contacted, Bapujinagar councillor V. Krishna blamed the contractor. He said that he had complained about the contractor several times. “I had even written to the commissioner urging him to blacklist the contractor. I will follow it up with him again,” he said.
Mr. Krishna said that he would take out a jatha on Monday in the area to create awareness about segregation of waste at source. He added that a board would be put up at the black spots in his ward warning people to desist from dumping garbage there.
