With work under way on the ₹160 crore ‘Citizens Water Way Project’ — which will see Bengaluru’s K-100 rajakaluve get a facelift — the civic body is turning to technology to tackle the indiscriminate dumping of waste into the major storm water drain.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has proposed a QR code-based door-to-door garbage collection to be implemented in and around Rajendra Nagar slum in Koramangala on a pilot basis.
Senior officials told The Hindu that each house will be assigned a QR code and a card with all the relevant details. Garbage collectors will have to scan the QR code while collecting waste, which will be transmitted to the smart control room.
The K-100 drain is a major drain measuring 11.4-km in length, connecting the erstwhile Dharmambudhi Lake, where the Kempegowda bus station now stands, to Bellandur Lake. The government wants to develop the drain along the lines of the ‘Sabarmati River Waterfront’ project.
This system is likely to be rolled out in a month. Civic officials are currently mapping houses near the drain, especially those in Rajendra Nagar slum in Koramangala, a locality that abuts the major storm water drain. “For the pilot, around 2,000 houses will be mapped. Once it is successful, the model will be scaled up and replicated in other parts of the city,” a senior official said.
A few years ago, a similar pilot had been taken up in Yelahanka zone and implemented in one block with 500 houses. Though it was successful, it could not be implemented in other parts of the city.
BBMP’s Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) Sarfaraz Khan, who is spearheading the mapping of houses, told The Hindu that marshals were already working with communities living along the storm water drain and creating awareness about proper waste disposal and dissuading them from dumping any sort of waste into the drain. “Indiscriminate dumping of waste into drains is a major issue that needs to be addressed. The waste in the drains lead to blockage, affecting flow of water, which causes it to overflow and flood nearby localities,” he said.
The BBMP has also been working with the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board to arrest the inflow of sewage and untreated effluents into the drain. Work on setting up a sewage treatment plant of five million litres per day capacity had already begun.
The other major challenge before the civic body is clearing encroachments along the stretch, apart from tackling legal hurdles.
