Infrastructure

Garbage continues to be one of the biggest challenges in our city and can only be addressed by managing waste in a decentralised manner. More households should manage their waste ‘at source’ through home composting while the rest can be managed at a neighbourhood level. It is clear that with this degree of decentralisation, only a meager 5-10% of our waste would go to landfills. What is the key missing piece in this puzzle? Citizen Awareness. One such great initiative looking to solve this problem is 'SwachaGraha Kalika kendra' a composting learning center. It is a first-of-its-kind project in India,…

It has been six years since Bengaluru’s waste management mess was brought to the notice of the High Court of Karnataka through a Public Interest Litigation, by Kavitha Shankar and the Solid Waste Management Round Table team. While the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has undertaken many measures to help manage waste better, there is lots more that remains to be done. When the PIL began in 2012, the city of Bengaluru was producing about 3,500 tonnes of waste per day, with no waste segregation in place and all waste going to landfill. All mixed garbage from the city was…

It was 5.40 pm on a Monday evening. I had just swiped out of my office and walked briskly towards the Vydehi hospital junction in Whitefield, Bengaluru. The traffic was heavier than normal and the entire route towards Graphite India junction had come to a grinding halt. The wait at the BMTC bus stop would invariably be five to ten minutes to catch the buses going towards Big Bazaar and Metro. I remembered reading on Facebook about the new train feeder to Metro, that leaves Whitefield at 6.15 pm halting at Hoodi at 6.25 pm and then reaching Baiyappanahalli at…

India has one of the largest road networks in the world; yet, year after year, citizens bear the brunt of poor road quality, especially during the monsoons. From Mumbai to Guwahati, from Gurgaon to Bangalore the rains turn roads into rivers and when they do resurface, it is difficult to classify the ravaged, pothole-ridden stretches as roads! This may be an annual affair but the quality of roads in Indian cities continues to remain poor due to lack of accountability mechanisms in place. Why does such a situation persist for years on end and what might it take to fix…

Here is the first story to kick off our month-long celebration of Madras Day! Happy Birthday Madras! Sriram V is 75 walks old!! A name synonymous with Chennai heritage, Sriram marked this milestone with a tour of Dare House, the distinguished Art Deco building on Parry's corner, which is the headquarters of the Murugappa group. (A list of all 75 walks can be found here) Meenakshi R: Between Walk 1 and Walk 75, tell us what has changed. Sriram V: I did my first walk in 1999, in Mylapore. In those days there was no social media or apps to…

In our deeply undemocratic traffic system, we need to call out how strong the automobile lobby is, how suppressed pedestrians are and how small is the resistance from pedestrians and public transport uses. Consider this: peaceful, democratic protesters are not allowed by a force-wielding police to come anywhere near Mantralaya. They are confined to a corner some 2 km away in Azad Maidan, in a corner, rendered invisible to the people. But axe-wielding men of the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena (MNS) could easily dig up the footpath right in front of the state government headquarters, supposedly to protest the presence of…

Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) submitted a detailed observation to Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) on the Consultation Paper No. 05/ 2018-19 in respect of Determination of tariffs for Aeronautical Services at Kempegowda International Airport. Revathy Ashok, Managing Trustee, B.PAC had earlier made these submissions in the Stakeholder Consultation meet held on June 18th, 2018. B.PAC in its submission has requested AERA to disallow the collection of User Development Fee (UDF) through the second control period for the following reasons: Because of delay in hearing by AERA, excess UDF has been charged in the first two years of the second…

Saahas and Daily Dump, two well known initiatives in the waste management space in Bengaluru were recently recognised for their work. Saahas was awarded the Swachh Best Practice Award by Swachh Bharat Mission and Daily Dump the Swachh Entrepreneur Award. Prime Minister Narendra Modi conferred the awards and released the Swachh Survekshan 2018 Report and launched the Swachh Survekshan – 2018 Results Dashboard, accessible here. More details of the award can be read here. The following note has been shared by the Saahas team. Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) has selected Saahas Zero Waste, a Bengaluru based startup, to receive the Swachh Best Practice Award…

Waste pickers of Bengaluru working with Hasiru Dala, a nongovernmental organisation working on empowering waste pickers, submitted a memorandum to U T Khader, Minister of Urban Development and Housing, Karnataka, R. Sampath Raj, Mayor of Bengaluru; Sowmya Reddy, Member of Legislative Assembly, Karnataka, representing Jayanagara and Manjunath Prasad, Commissioner of Bengaluru. This was done on the occasion of Hasiru Habba, an annual gathering of waste-pickers in Karnataka, where more than 1000 waste-pickers participated. The gathering was organised to celebrate the work done by waste-pickers and informal waste collectors to keep our cities clean and healthy. The memorandum shared by Hasirudala…

On the occasion of World Environment Day 2018 that had the theme Beat Plastic Pollution, environmental groups led by the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), Bengaluru, got together to conduct Waste and Brand Audit in eight locations in Bengaluru. The audit was part of a pan-India activity coordinated by GAIA India, where ten member organisations and partners conducted clean up and waste and brand audits in 18 states of India. In Bengaluru, the Waste and Brand Audit took place on 20th to 22nd May 2018, with over 120 volunteers worked in partnership with groups like HasiruDala, Bangalore Eco Team,…