Bengaluru: Mandur residents triggered protests against the indiscriminate dumping of garbage at the landfill. Eighteen months later, a similar scene unfolded on at Seegehalli Gate (between Tavarakere and Nice Road) near Magadi Road on Monday. Thousands of villagers from Channenahalli, Soolikere, Kodigehalli, Machohalli, Kadabagere and Kachohalli, who live in the vicinity of Kannahalli and Seegehalli garbage processing plants staged a protest against the BBMP demanding the immediate shutdown of the plants due to the unbearable stench emanating from them.
The villagers have threatened to stage indefinite strike from January 3 if the BBMP does not shutdown the plant or take measures to curb the stench.
They alleged that the BBMP had promised to use advanced technology in the garbage processing plants which would prevent the stench but the situation is radically different from what the agency promised.
Kannahalli and Seegehalli Waste Processing Unit Opposition Committee member, Prof Ramachandra Bhat said that their living condition is not much worse than the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy. “Nearly 100 lorries bring Bengaluru’s garbage to the plant every day and at least a week’s stocks are piled up at the plant. The stench is so strong that it spreads as far as 5 km. It is now a breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies. Even the Medical Health Officer of Kannahalli has informed the BBMP Commissioner that air-borne diseases have increased in the village after the plant became functional,” rued Professor Bhat.
The plant is one of the BBMP’s most ambitious project, set up as a solution to the burgeoning Mandur crisis. Set up at Rs. 150 crore, the plant has a capacity to process 500 tonnes of wet waste. Despite the BBMP making garbage segregation at source compulsory, the civic agency has failed to convince the villagers to allow the operation of the plant.
Professor Bhat also alleged that the BBMP had not taken the consent of the villagers before the plant was constructed. “The BBMP officials simply informed a few factories that a garbage processing plant would come up in the area and took their permission as an overall assent. Their records show that the villagers had agreed to let the government construct the plant. We have been blatantly cheated,” he said.
Following the intervention of Yeswantpur MLA S.T Somashekar, the villagers have agreed to wait till December 29 for the BBMP to decide the course of action.
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