Management of Bengaluru’s municipal solid waste (MSW) would require an entire paradigm shift, if the charm of the erstwhile ‘Garden City’ has to be restored. This seemed to be the consensus emerging at a consultation convened by the new BBMP Administrator Mr. Vijaybhasker with NGOs and social activists of the city (on May 20 at the BBMP headquarters).
It is a common view that the principle of segregation of solid waste at source remains mainly confined to paper. The current pattern of collection, transportation and dumping of waste is flawed. Even if a household is conscious of segregation of the waste going out of its doorstep and abides by the principle, the waste is all mixed up while being collected in pushcarts or while being dumped in the garbage truck, thereby nullifying the objective.
The landfills are no longer seen as the solution. Experts too have opined that landfills merely shift the problem of waste from individual households and aggregate the same in rural environs. “This is not waste treatment, it is mere translocation of the garbage,” opines Kathyayini Chamaraj, trustee of CIVIC (Citizens for Voluntary Initiative for City). She says construction debris form a considerable part of the solid waste which has to be a paid collection by the Municipal staff, but the BBMP has not notified any phone numbers or personnel for the same.
BBMP Commissioner Kumar Naik concurs that the entire solid waste management should be decentralised with composting and recycling taken at ward level and the burning of waste should be totally avoided. The BBMP would, henceforth, be putting online all the contracts to be signed for waste treatment in order to bring in more transparency and enabling the civil society organisations to access them at will.
The review of the BATF agenda reveals that ‘Shuchi Mitra’, the civic minded citizens who volunteer to devote time to take on the responsibility of partnering the task of keeping the city clean, has all been forgotten. They used to devote their time for simple but essential tasks such as maintaining daily logbooks of time when pourakarmikas arrive for door-to-door waste collection, sweeping of streets, cleaning roadside drains, and public toilets and arrival of trucks for clearing garbage from the collection point or dustbin. The system worked well for some years initially but has become dysfunctional now.
Nearly 19,000 Pourakramikas (PKs) who form the bulk of the municipal workforce are considered the footsoldiers carrying out the basic task of waste collection. Pourakarmika Association President S. Balan complains that a majority of them have not been paid salaries for four months. PKs have to work on national holidays too, have been denied DA, have no provision for meals, drinking water and area for rest. They are not provided with face masks and hand gloves. Leo Saldanha from Environment Support Group highlights the fact that preponderant majority of PKs being women, they need exclusive washrooms for freshening themselves after work .
Referring to recent raids at hotels and other bulk generators of solid waste by the Commissioner, Mr. Ramakant, a member on the BBMP advisory panel on MSW management, pleads for authorising the zonal commissioners to conduct the same and penalise the violators. His panel has recommended separating the street sweeping, house-to-house collection and lifting waste from bulk generators.
He has also recommended appointment of a Junior Health Inspector in every ward and an Environmental Engineer on a cluster of wards as the current Assistant Engineers — who are mostly from civil background — do not have expertise in overseeing scavenging,
Smitha, an architect and activist with Lalbagh West Volunteers Group, opines that without mass awareness about segregation of waste at source and the full chain mechanism to keep the waste segregated till treatment, the exercise to clean up the city would be futile. The Group has reduced the load of waste from their colony consisting of around a thousand houses on ten streets by 1.5 tonnes a week by organising separation of dry waste at the weekend with the help of the Haseeru Dala.
Tagging app Smitha and her group of eight friends have been campaigning in the colony to send the dry waste to Jayanagar based BBMP Dry Waste Collection Centre once a week. They have tagged all the households with an App named ‘I Got Garbage’ provided by a software firm. Murali of Namma Cycle suggests redesigning of PKs’ pushcarts. Some even advise their motorisation, given the undulating terrain of Bengaluru.
(The author can be reached at maqsiraj@gmail.com.)
