Rajneesh Goel, Commissioner of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which is drawing flak for the garbage crisis in the city, on Saturday assured a Bench of the Lok Adalat that he would “show a different Bangalore” in a few months.
“We are introducing a total garbage disposal mechanism unlike what has been done during the past 10 years. We can’t improve the situation overnight. We will show a different Bangalore, in terms of garbage handling, in a few months…,” Mr. Goel said.
This was his response when the Bench, comprising Justice D.V. Shylendra Kumar of the Karnataka High Court and A.N. Yellappa Reddy, Lok Adalat member, pointed out that storm-water drains (SWD) in the city were clogged with garbage and plastic, preventing rainwater from reaching the lakes.
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However, the Lok Adalat, which has been monitoring municipal solid waste programmes in the State, did not deliberate on the garbage issue in Bangalore in detail as a Division Bench of the High Court has been adjudicating a batch of public interest litigation (PIL) petitions on this issue.
Survey of drains
Meanwhile, Mr. Goel said that in August the BBMP ordered a revenue survey to ascertain the exact width of 850 kilometres of ‘raja kaluves’ (storm-water drains) across the city and to identify encroachments of SWD, and digitisation of details of the drains. He said Ceva Consultancy had been appointed to conduct the survey in coordination with personnel drawn from the Department of Survey, Settlement and Land Records at a cost of Rs. 2.32 crore. Survey of 115 km of SWD had been completed and the entire work would be over within six months.
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Chairman of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board told the adalat that no sewage would flow into the city’s lakes in about two years when all the ongoing projects taken up in this connection would be completed.
Waste oil
The adalat suggested to the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) to monitor processing of waste oils, including used engine oil, brought to the city from other places for treatment in licensed processing units, to ensure that unprocessed oil was not sold in the market.
KSPCB authorities informed the adalat that about 11,699 kilolitres of used oil was being processed every year in various authorised units.
Pesticides
The adalat also advised the Health and Agriculture departments to evolve a mechanism to analyse the use of pesticides by farmers to ensure that banned pesticides were not sold to them.