Tired of garbage not being cleared, a few traders and children from the local government school blocked Avenue Road to draw the attention of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials.
On Thursday morning, they placed barricades on the arterial road in the heart of the city and demanded that the garbage from the area be cleared immediately. They alleged that waste had been piling up since Dasara.
Former councillor A.L. Shivakumar told The Hindu that nearly 50 tonnes of garbage is generated in Chikpete. The quantity doubles on festivals. “A floating population of around three lakh people visit the area every day. Despite this, the BBMP fails to clear the garbage on time,” he rued.
He said that garbage lies dumped in the six secondary collection points in the area – Avenue Road, OTC Road, Mamulpete, Hospital Road, Akkipete Market and BVK Iyengar Road. “The garbage that is collected door-to-door is dumped here to be picked up by compactors. For several years, I have been requesting the BBMP to deploy more men and machinery here. My appeals have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.
BBMP officials, who rushed to the spot after learning about the protest, attributed the backlog in garbage clearance to problems at the processing units in Doddaballapur taluk. “We are working on clearing the accumulated waste on priority,” an official added.
Traffic jamsThe protest affected traffic movement on the arterial road and also on nearby roads for nearly an hour. The bottleneck was cleared only after traffic police intervened and requested the protestors to lift the blockade.
