The efforts that the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) claims to be making to end the impasse over the dumping of garbage in the landfills in Mandur seem to be coming to naught. The communities living around the landfill have once again started to protest against the dumping of waste from the city in the landfill there. So much that on Monday and Tuesday, garbage trucks were offloaded with police protection.
With the situation still not under control, it is said that local MLA and Minister for Health and Family Welfare Arvind Limbavali met with the community leaders and gram panchayat members. It is said that he has also fixed a meeting with Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, Deputy Chief Minister and city in-charge R. Ashok, Bangalore North MP D.B. Chandre Gowda, community leaders from the affected villages, including Mandur, Gundur, Byappanahalli and Kammasandra, and BBMP officials. The meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday at Vikasa Soudha, sources said.
The community members contend that though the BBMP had assured them of reducing the waste sent to the landfill each month, it had not kept its word. The BBMP had promised the communities that no garbage would be sent to the landfills from February 1. However, they are yet to get it in writing. Irked by the non-committal attitude of the BBMP officials, the communities have once again begun their protest.
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Mandur gram panchayat member Rakesh Gowda said that the communities are mainly upset that the number of trucks dumping waste at Mandur has not come down. By January, the BBMP was to have reduced the number of trucks to 75. Instead, more than 200 trucks still dump garbage at the landfills where neither processing of the waste nor measures to prevent any environmental impact are taken up.
The fate of the Mandur landfill will be known after the meeting on Wednesday, he added.