By IANS,
Bangalore : With Bangalore’s garbage mess adding to its many woes, the city’s civic administration and the Karnataka government were Wednesday urged by a trade body to involve people and give them a free hand without political interference to make the state capital a better city.
All 198 wards in the city should have “watchdog committees to promote transparency and accountability in works executed by government departments, Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) said.
These committees should comprise “eminent citizens, representatives of reputed NGOs, organisations like FKCCI and resident welfare associations and they should be given a free hand to function without political interference and hindrance,” FKCCI president K. Shiva Shanmugam told a press conference here.
The demand comes against the backdrop of Bangalore, known as ‘Garden City’, turning into a virtual garbage city as the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or Greater Bangalore City Corporation) left thousands of tonnes of garbage to rot in the city for around ten days from August last week.
The BBMP and the state government could not find landfills to dump the garbage following protests by residents around three dump yards on the outskirts of Bangalore.
The residents around two landfills have allowed resumption of dumping following a promise by the state government to provide them relief in terms of monetary compensation for crop loss and supply of fresh drinking water.
This has eased the problem though nearly 10,000 tonnes of garbage still needs to be cleared. The city, with a population of around eight million generates 5,000 tonnes of garbage daily.
Besides garbage disposal, the city suffered from bad roads, poorly-designed road humps, stray dog menace and ineffective storm water drains, Shanmugham noted.
Though BBMP assures the city’s residents every year that all these problems would be attended to, most of the work intended to solve them was sub-standard, he said.
Hence, watchdog committees functioning without political interference offer a way out, Shanmugham said.