BENGALURU: Just ahead of the Swachh Sarvekshan ranking, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has intensified its clean-up drive. It has started to press upon people to get their opinion on the city’s garbage condition, irrespective of whether it is good or bad. This is being done with the aim to improve Bengaluru’s ranking this year. Last year, the city had slipped by 20 spots and had ranked 214 among all cities in garbage management. The city’s national ranking was 37 in the category of population over 40 lakh in garbage management.
The city received a zero out of 100 in garbage free city category and citizen participation was only 50 per cent against what was expected. “We know that we will fare poor in garbage management, so we are stressing on getting more feedback and involvement from people. Our target is to get at least 1 lakh feedbacks from people and so far it is 60,000,” a senior BBMP official told TNIE.
The BBMP is now targeting those attending ward committee meetings and obtaining services through the Sahaaya App to get feedback. They are giving them forms or sharing links to get feedback. The BBMP is also aggressively advertising and asking people to segregate waste before disposal and warning them of penalty if they don’t follow solid waste management rules.
Experts said, “BBMP is very anxious of the rating after it pulled up the National Green Tribunal last week, over poor garbage management and for the condition of landfills waste processing sites.” BBMP Special Commissioner, SWM, Randeep D, said to address the issue, special purpose vehicles will also be launched soon and the issue of transportation of garbage is being addressed. Besides, tenders are also being called for garbage management at the ward-level.