Lawyer blames KAS officer for littering locality at night
Garbage strewn around in Kumaraswamy Layout, 1st stage
Bengaluru: Garbage disposal at Kumarasawmy Layout, 1st stage has become a major problem, thanks to the attitude of some of the residents. Ashok Bannidini, a lawyer, has been asking his neighbors not to throw garbage near their house at night, as it is causing great inconvenience to his family. In fact, one of the neighbours indulging in this activity is a KAS officer. When he objected to the malpractice, to his surprise, the officer and his family members retorted that as long as he was not throwing garbage at their house, they should not say anything! The matter has been taken to the BBMP and a complaint has been made, but it has failed to serve any purpose.
Ashok B said, “When I spoke to the KAS officer he asked me to close our windows and doors and sit at home. He argued that he was not throwing the rubbish at my house, so it should not bother us. Once my mother had a word with his brother and he too said the same thing. I complained to BBMP about it. Although they came and cleared the garbage, the problem still persists and the neighbours continue to dump garbage near our house.”
Ashok even pointed out the problem to the local contractor, Girish. He asked Girish to erect a board or place a dustbin. But Girish maintained that placing a garbage bin there would only result in more littering. Ashok says, “I told him that if I had to put up a board myself, I would do it. We have children in our house and kids are very vulnerable to diseases like malaria and dengue. The problem is that the dumping is done at night and we do not know exactly who is doing it. Every morning when we wake up, we see rubbish strewn all around.” All this is happening despite the fact that the ‘pourakarmikas’ are doing their rounds of door- to-door waste collection.
Ashok explains, “The current bunch of pourakarmikas are very old and now a lot of high-rise apartments have come up here. They charge Rs 50-100 extra to climb the stairs to collect the garbage and people are too lazy to come down and give them their garbage. They’re not ready to pay them nor do they want to climb down. So they have found an easier way and that is --- dumping the garbage near our house at night!”
Speaking about the issue, BBMP Commissioner Kumar Naik says, “This is the problem with most of the localities. Putting up sign boards will not serve any purpose. It loses its value. Unless and until some penalty is levied, this situation will not change. I will look into the matter and see if any penalty can be imposed on the people who are doing this.” He signed off on an encouraging note:”We are planning a large-scale awareness campaign, which will start soon!"
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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