Environment

Politicians irrespective of their party line shared their concerns about looming water scarcity that is fast approaching Bangalore and pledged their commitment in support of the action plan prepared by two city NGOs. The Centre for Policies and Practices (CPP) and Bangalore Environment Trust (BET) presented their plan at a conference on "Bangalore's water famine 2020 A ticking time bomb" held on 29 January at Gandhi Bhavan. Pic: The event organised by the Centre for Policies and Practices and the Bangalore Environment Trust. Pic: Kishore S U. CPP and BET have proposed a detailed action plan to address water scarcity…

One of the events at Lalbagh that the citizens of Bangalore, always look forward to is the Republic Day Flower Show. The weather is always very pleasant, and the beautiful displays in the Glass House are a great attraction for the visitors to this lung-space of our city.Having seen the displays each year, I thought I will go and see how it's all put together. So, by 630am, I was in Lalbagh with some friends. When I told the guards that I was from Citizen Matters and wanted to cover the preparations, they allowed me into the Glass House. I…

"Have you ever tracked down and located your garbage?" questioned Akshay Yadav, coordinator, Green Commandos of Youth For Seva Organisation(YFS) to a group of residents. The question left the residents wondering.An Awareness presentation for Waste Management was held by YFS, at Raja Helix Apartments, Bilekahalli on Saturday, 14 January. The poster outside the apartment. Pic: Deepthi M S The presentation was on the importance of segregation of waste at source. Yadav explained that more than half of the daily waste was organic waste, which could be treated at home and turned into manure. He also added that by segregation, recycling…

An organic waste converter plant has been set up at Jayanagar 3rd block, next to the Veterinary Hospital. All the wet waste collected from houses, hotels, market and parks in Jayanagar will now be treated at this unit. Jayanagar Waste converter. Pic: Deepthi M S This solid waste management unit built at `40 lakhs, collects organic waste, processes them and converts them into organic manure. Minister R Ashoka, inaugurated the unit on 19th January.BBMP is distributing red and green coloured bins to around 1500 houses in Jayanagar. Residents are asked to put in their dry waste such as paper, glass…

Parks have turned out to be the new ‘play' area for BBMP. Work order was issued in 2008-09 for installing play equipments for twenty lakh rupees at the first block park (earlier known as Wipro park). The equipments were however not installed till December 2011. The palike has spent over one crore rupees (1,30,48,825) on the Koramangala 1st block park between 2007 and 2010. Most of which is for the work that was never done. The play equipments in 1st block Park were not installed for three years. Pic; Padmalatha Ravi In the era multi-crore scams this might seem like…

Garbage collection in the city is currently broken because BBMP is not awarding long overdue new tenders. Contractors have been jamming the July 2011-initiated tender process with objections for months now. A Citizen Matters inquiry has exposed that BBMP has diluted the terms of engagement several times in past two months. Pourakarmikas manually handling the garbage in Richmond Town. Pic: Kathyayini Chamaraj A clause which mandated the contractor to submit monthly records of door-to-door collection to BBMP in electronic format, was removed in December. Another clause which imposed a 10-15% of monthly contract value as penalty for one offence of…

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's Rs 600 million garbage segregation plant at Subbarayanpalya, an interior village in Kumbalgudu, which should have been completed by the end of 2011, is still at the tender stage. The area is near Rajarajeshwari Nagar in SW Bengaluru. Sixty-five trucks reportedly visit this site daily to dump waste from Bangalore. Pic: Sankar C G As per information from the BBMP website, the tender process for the 750 metric-tons-per-day plant should have been wound up before April 10, 2011."It was in 2009 that BBMP thought of implementing a new automated garbage plant, similar to the one in…

Last year ended on a high note and the new year began on a higher note for PNLIT! December was when our project was open for voting in Mahindra Spark the Rise Project Championship. Those were hectic days of campaigning and canvassing for votes. From among the submitted projects, Times Now channel chose PNLIT for their Amazing Indians series. We combined our monthly Nature Walk with the film shoot and invited some 75 school children to visit the lake. The kids' excitement at seeing the birds was incomparable.Spark the Rise result announcement was postponed from 4th to 9th January, prolonging…

Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust's (PNLIT) "Nurturing Puttenahalli Lake back to its pristine glory" project cleared the December round (Round 4) of Mahindra Group's "Spark the Rise" social campaign. The campaign is a platform to help put ideas into action to drive positive change in the nation and the winners are awarded grant money to put those ideas in to action."We're delighted", says Usha Rajagopal, chairperson of PNLIT in a note to Citizen Matters. Banner on display at the lake asking people to vote. Pic: Swaminathan O P. After the fourth round victory, PNLIT is now eligible for Rs 4…

It was a warm Sunday morning and a sizeable crowd listened in rapt attention to Dr B N Vishwanath at the Celebrity Paradise Club house in Electronic City on January 8th. Dr Vishwanath, the organic kitchen garden evangelist, was talking about the importance of growing one's own food. Apart from health benefits, especially for children, the physical exercise of gardening outdoors also keeps you fit, he said. Visitors buying plants, seedlings and tools. Pic: Meera K. Vishwanath presented some facts on the food that we eat today, emphasising on the dangers of pesticide-laden food. He and his colleague S Laxminarayanan…