By Ripun Chhabra:
Once a city to be bragged about, Bangalore is now facing a threat to its tag of cleanliness. It seems as if the city’s cleanliness is going extinct. Over 5000 tons of garbage, heaps up from the daily waste. With the formation of such an enormous mountain, the city is in danger of being labelled as “junk city”. There was a time when Bangalore was known for its environment and picturesque gardens but now that same city is struggling hard to dispose the gigantic lump of garbage it has. State Chief Justice Vikramajit Sen blamed the municipality for the condition and asked the citizens to segregate the waste at home. Under the pressure of public petition and court’s anger, BJP — the ruling party of Karnataka, and Bangalore Civic Body woke up from their slumber to address the issue.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike passed an ordinance this Thursday stating that the citizens need to segregate the waste at residential level, and failing to do so, they will be fined. Not just it, but the Bangalore Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy assured that if the civic body brings ‘garbage clearance’ under the scheme of ‘sakala’ (time bound) then the garbage has to be cleared within 24 hours of lodging the complaint, failure of which, the concerned authority would be fined. They are also looking to buy or lease a 200 acres land around the city for land-fills.
After reading and listening to the measures being taken and thought of, one feels that, might be, our leaders have actually woken up from their slumber. But, a big question mark arises if it is really a step taken by a responsible citizen towards nature or is it just because of the upcoming elections in May next year, which might be preponed to this December? The second option seems more likely. Not just to save the previous vote bank but to create a new one, the leaders might be taking this step. Nevertheless this question is still unanswered; one thing that is certain is that the benefit of garbage clearance would create a probability of sustaining the title of ‘a showpiece city’.