Waste management should be handled by ward committees: Citizens for Bengaluru

Bengaluru: With the ward committee meetings being held in more number of wards, the Citizens for Bengaluru wants the forum to be effectively used for planning solid waste management, its implementation and monitoring.

Volunteers of the citizens’ organisation met Joint Commissioner for Solid Waste Management Randeep and requested him to instruct the officials to use ward committee meetings to monitor SWM at the ward level and extract the best outcomes as people from all walks of life who are part of the committees share their inputs.

Mr Srinivas Alavilli, co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru, told Deccan Chronicle, “In fact, the ward committees came into picture because of the PIL filed on solid waste management by activists like Kathyayini Chamaraj. Ward committees are an inclusive forum where we can find all kinds of citizens, right from the ones who have access to social media to the ones who do not even have a smart phone.”

“Ward committees are the most powerful democratic, inclusive and constitutional forums to participate and shape the local government. We are working hard to ensure that more citizens take part in the ward committee meeting every month,” he said.

“After we expressed our wish to Mr Randeep, he welcomed the idea and told us that he will take necessary steps towards making this a reality,” he said.

Mr Randeep, however, was not available for comments.