Drive across the roads of Bangalore today and see mounds of filth, mud, plastic and stones removed from across the city’s drains and just left in heaps along the drains. It happens day in and day out. Men are hired to manually scavenge and clean the drains which get blocked through the year with dirt and debris either deliberately thrown in by the surrounding houses or swept into them by the sweepers, keeping the area clean. Instead of immediately sending in trucks to cart away the dirt, the mounds are left alongside, to slide right back, from where they initially came from, with the first few thunder showers that hit the city. Whatever does not slide back into the drain, slides all over the roads making it impossible to walk on.

Dirt removed from drains flows back. Pic: Marianne de Nazareth

Stormwater drains have excavators lifting tons of loads of the muck, ostensibly to clear the drains and allow the rainwater to flow, and keep the roads dry. There too, the mire and muck is carelessly just loaded onto the road and left supposedly for those unseen hands to clear and clean away. Is it not possible to co-ordinate this exercise? Give the labour a day to clear one section of the drains and then the same labour are pressed into service to load the muck into lorries to cart away? How difficult is that for our Corporation fathers to handle?

It does not need tons of expertise to know what needs to be done to complete the job. However, the drains are often opened, cleared of the dirt and debris which is just placed in mounds on the sides and left to cause misery to the surrounding areas. Even if there are two sets of labour, one to clean and one to clear, why cannot it be supervised and done with? This is a game with a lot of money involved which is getting lost in the loopholes. A lot of our tax-payers money is paid in good faith for a decent infrastructure, why is no one made accountable? Why is this being allowed to carry on year after year?⊕