This January, BBMP  floated a new tender to deal with the city’s perennial garbage problem. D Randeep, Special Commissioner (Solid Waste Management and Health), BBMP, sat down for a chat with ‘Citizens Live’ to answer niggling doubts about the controversial tender.

“The central issue is still segregation. The new policy is that wet and sanitary waste will be picked up by BBMP everyday. Dry waste will be picked up by NGOs, waste collectors,” he said. He stressed that it was therefore imperative that we, the general public, segregate our waste.

“If you don’t, we do have provisions to penalise people; marshals can check on you; health inspectors can look into the matter. The time to convince people is over. Now is the time to get things done,” said the officer.

He also said it would be a violation of human rights of those who worked in the sector, if we expected them to segregate our waste by hand. “It is inhuman,” was his statement.

Randeep asserted that the new system would be successful only if ward committees took ownership of waste management locally, as per the Micro Plan. “Unless someone at the ground level asks the right questions, the system would not be functional to a large extent,” he said.

The new tender had not found universal approval, with Council members raising many concerns about termination clauses. Political opposition seemed like a hurdle, since it is an open secret that most elected members have a stake in the garbage mafia. “This policy is about providing a better solution to the problem. We had a number of meetings with Council members, and the policy is now through with very minor changes that won’t really effect the deliverables,” Randeep said.