Bengaluru: The garbage issue has been in news for all the wrong reasons in the city. Despite being discussed at every level by the government, there has been no solution yet. Now, the new concern for the BBMP is that the garbage segregation is taking place in a haphazard manner.
A team will be formed soon to inspect if garbage segregation is happening during door-to-door collection and till garbage reaches dump yards.
Mayor Gangambike, who was on her city rounds to inspect development works and to address civic issues, found that BBMP officials in a few zones, like the East, North and West, were complaining that garbage segregation is not happening at any level.
A senior officer from the Solid Waste Management Department said, “We are concerned that garbage segregation is being taken lightly by residents, business establishments, restaurants and even pourakarmikas. We have informed the Mayor, who also witnessed it firsthand. She has ordered that a team be formed to go around and conduct surprise inspections to see if pourakarmikas are segregating garbage while collecting it from houses. Pourakarmikas should ensure that the garbage is segregated before dumping it in the vehicle, failing which the garbage will not be collected from houses.”
Another officer said that initially, garbage was being segregated at restaurants, hospitals, industries and commercial establishments. But now, even they are ignoring segregation. “Recently, we found that a popular restaurant had put dry and wet waste together, paid some money to pourakarmikas and asked them to segregate it. The pourakarmikas failed to separate the waste and dumped it in the vehicle. It was noticed by our official and when he questioned the pourakarmikas, they told him that they got some money to segregate it and even the contractor got his share of the money,” he said.
Segregation must happen at source for garbage to be collected, the officer said. “We need to start imposing penalties on people not segregating waste. The new team will go around and if they find garbage not being segregated, they will penalise the offenders. If pourakarmikas are not acting accordingly, the contractor will be held responsible,” he said.
