Apartment residents on Meenakshi temple road get tons of garbage dumped on road for a year cleared by themselves

BENGALURU: The government has set out to burnish ‘Brand Bengaluru’, but there is still no relief from the garbage problem. Even after requesting the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) to clear the garbage that had been lying on Meenakshi Temple Road near Bannerghatta Main Road for about a year, it was not lifted. As a result, the locals themselves removed tons of garbage.

Along with the notoriety of being a ‘traffic city’, Bengaluru is also becoming a ‘garbage city”, and there seems to be no solution to the garbage problem. Residents of Meenakshi Temple Road on Bannerghatta Main Road had been fed up for about a year. Despite multiple requests to the GBA regarding this, tons of garbage lying on the road were not cleared.

On the occasion of Kempegowda Jayanti, residents of four apartments along a 600-metre stretch of Meenakshi Road cleared tons of garbage on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They voluntarily came forward and cleared about 60 tractor loads of garbage.

Meenakshi temple road falls between Arakere, Gottigere and Bengaluru South wards, and has been neglected. Officials pass the buck saying the other ward will handle it. Therefore, the locals themselves cleared the garbage and filth dumped on the road, planted saplings in those places, and set an example. Additionally, the residents themselves have decided to install CCTV cameras on the road, and have resolved to return the garbage to the homes of those who dump it.

Subramanya Udupa, secretary of the Windsor Four Seasons Apartment Association, told Public TV, “We are just 600-700 metres away from the main road, but garbage and waste had not been cleared despite several representations to the authorities concerned. There are about 30-35 per cent of senior citizens living in the apartments. On the occasion of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda’s 517th birth anniversary, we along with residents of Meenakshi Green and Royal Meenakshi apartments, along with some residents of the layout, hired a few excavators and tractors to get the place cleared. It had become a dumpying yard. Now, we have cleared most of it and planted fruit-bearing trees. Our locality is split between three wards and we were left as orphans”.

“We removed about 60 tractor-loads of garbage and filth from the place. We had given several representations to clear the garbage, but officials would only shift blame. So we took up this initiative on Kempegowda Jayanti and all residents cooperated and participated in the drive. We request the authorities to ensure that no more garbage is dumped in the place”, said Joshua, a resident and member of the Bengaluru Navanirmana Party.