BENGALURU: A confident Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will inform the Karnataka High Court on Monday that it has cleared garbage from all black spots in the city. However, officials and experts feel a more significant move has been deployment of marshals to levy fines on those littering public spaces.One of the biggest changes the court has brought about is the appointment of marshals. N S Ramakanth, a member of BBMP’s Solid Waste Management Committee, said the court had passed an order to appoint them two years ago.
According to Additional Commissioner (Administration) D Randeep said the marshals, who have begun to carry out night patrols, have fined ‘quite a lot’ of people. The marshals will also have regulatory functions such as checking if waste processing plants are functioning and if door-to-door collectors are operating.
On October 30, the High Court had initially set a deadline of October 31 to clear all untreated garbage. The deadline was then extended to November 5, coinciding with Deepavali. Akin to the drives to clear hoardings and fill potholes, the court’s move has had a positive impact.
Randeep, BBMP will inform the High Court on Monday that 1,462 black spots have been identified. Time-stamped pictures of black spots taken before and after the cleaning will be submitted to show that at least one-time cleaning has been done. “Barring some exceptions where we cannot enter, garbage is being lifted regularly and no garbage is older than 48 hours,” he said.
Randeep said the court will also be informed as to how 150 black spots were eliminated by beautifying the areas. “We have taken steps such as painting the walls near the spot and placing flower pots in the past two to three days. People have stopped dumping garbage there. We are also in the process of ensuring that at least 50 per cent of black spots are eliminated in this way, while eliminating the other half will take some time,” he said.
Ramakanth said it will now be mandatory for senior SWM officers to make field visits. “None of our zonal commissioners were going to the field. So now a circular will be issued, maybe by next week,” he said.
An engineer from the Solid Waste Management Department also advocated enforcement by the Marshals. “Sometimes, if our workers refuse to accept the garbage because it is not segregated, the citizens’ response is just to dump it in the open.”