Eleven days after segregation of garbage at source was made mandatory in the city, the plan seems to have failed at multiple levels and the BBMP does not appear to be doing anything about it. Pour­aka­r­m­ikas who have not been trained to collect segregated waste, are making a mockery of the scheme and a number of Bengalureans still seem unaware of the process. Abide member Ashwin Mahesh speaks to Deccan Chronicle about where he thinks the BBMP has gone wrong.

Lack of commitment

The BBMP should first make a commitment to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills. More than three-quarters of rubbish that ends up buried does not need to be discarded at all as it can be reused. Once we make up our minds that we will not go on adding to the landfills, everything else will fall into place.

Failure to adapt tech

BBMP should set a framework for waste management, and allow communities to pick the methods. Com­p­elling property owners and tenants to dispose of waste in narrow specific ways is a mistake. We now have a wide range of technology to handle and manage both dry and wet waste, and we should not worry too much which of these the public prefers as long as it is safe. There must be a genuine effort to educate the citizens, and help them embrace new practices. The city administration cannot wash its hands of the problem by passing a set of rules and demanding that citizens adhere to them. There must be guidance on how to do things differently, and what to do when a problem is encountered. The current approach of “ordering” people around, esp­e­c­i­ally bulk generators, is highly undemocratic. Having failed to do its part in the past, the BBMP can’t resort to lectures and warnings .

Stumbling on guidelines

The market for recycled goods is quite varied, and operates without guidelines on standards, prices, end use assurance, and so on. It is the responsibility of the state government to guide the development of this market in a way that avoids monopolies and short-cuts. Too often, the innovation in businesses that provide public goods and services is in cooking the contracts and books, rather than in the products themselves. The city's solid waste management has been a victim of this for far too long.

Ignoring stakeholders

The administrators should also rec­o­gnise that hundreds of communities have taken to solid waste management even when it was not mandatory. They have infused Bengaluru with a spirit of public responsibility which is a tremendous benefit. We must figure out how to strengthen such bonds of community at the local level, and facilitate their participation in more spheres of governance. The government passed a community participation law more than 18 months ago, but has yet to set up ward sabhas. The Municipal Corpo­rations Act requires the creation of ward committees, but there is no sign of them. These bodies are important, because the law provides formal rights to them in overseeing SWM. Any contract that tries to circumvent this role for citizens is bou­nd to end up in courts. Whatever is done, we must measure how well it is working. A standard malaise in government is to put some system in place and forget to check how effective it is. That's the kind of error that has landed us in the trouble now. In the future, we must constantly evaluate how our public systems are working, be candid and public in admitting failures, and make the necessary tweaks to go on.