‘When BBMP can find land for Indira canteens, why not for waste processing plants’

HC wants ward committees to identify a location in every ward, submit action plan by December 8

Why the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) could not find enough land for setting up waste processing units in every ward when the civic body is able to identify land for establishing Indira canteens in various wards?

A Division Bench comprising Justice B.S. Patil and Justice B.V. Nagarathna of the Karnataka High Court posed this question on Friday when BBMP’s counsel and Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) informed that the BBMP could not establish the required number of municipal solid waste (MSW) processing plants in all the wards due to non availability of land.

BBMP Joint Commissioner (MSW) Sarfaraz Khan said that some portions of total waste collected in the city are being transported to villages on the periphery and dumped in quarry pits, as some waste processing plants are not working for various reasons, and in several wards, the plants could not be established due to non availability of land or protests by residents.

Noticing that waste collected from a ward has to be processed within the same ward as per an earlier direction of the court, the bench directed that the newly constituted ward committees in every ward should come up with a plan to establish additional plants within the ward by identifying suitable places on a priority, and the BBMP should submit such an action plan to the court by December 8.

The bench also directed that the every ward committee hold their first meeting on or before November 30 as the law requires them to meet at least once every month, and examine ward-level macro plan for MSW management, prepare a fresh plan keeping in view the requirement of each ward in terms of duties assigned to the ward committees.

“We hope and trust that ward committees will engage themselves seriously in the task assigned to them under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, particularly Section 13 I, and also in terms of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016,” the bench observed while hearing petitions related to the garbage problem.

The bench also directed the BBMP to make available orders containing specific directions, issued by the court in petitions related to the garbage problem, from time-to-time by preparing booklets and make available the ward micro plan, prepared for each ward, within 10 days.