Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Garbage Dump that is Bangalore!

No, you read it right; there is no mistake.  The title is intentionally that.  The reason is probably pretty obvious to those who have made Bangalore their abode, but others will require elucidation, which begins NOW.   During the past two months, Bangalore's politically driven and absolutely useless administrative set-up is so mixed up with garbage that it has become conveniently redundant to make any distinction between the two.  When the news media got tired of the saga of politicians' shameful shenanigans - small, medium and big (one size does not fit all in this field because hierarchy is critical) - they thrived on stories of garbage lying around in the city, uncleared for weeks.  A lot of like-minded people agreed with this scribe that they could not figure out what caused the more offensive part of that all-pervasive stink, the garbage piles or the political and bureaucratic classes (let us refer to this group collectively as Masters of Garbage or MoG, for the sake of brevity and convenience) tasked with keeping the city relatively clean.  As we go to press with this, suspicion is gaining ascendancy that there has been an effective and silent merger of the two parts - the garbage and MoG; the latter seem to be voluntarily and comfortably hiding somewhere under the mounds of garbage to escape the wrath of the public.  To boot, courts are sniping at MoG to act immediately, with some dire legal threats.

As is customary in India in matters relating to public funds, garbage disposal also provides immense scope for MoG to exploit for personal gains.  This group is tickled pink by the idea of using their own acolytes and sycophants as designated contractors and making a `clean and healthy' profit out of garbage. Of course, MoG diligently ensures that the best qualification such contractors have is virtually no experience or expertise in garbage disposal.  MoG's nexus with such contractors who actually pretend to clear garbage once in a while, pocket increasing amounts of money from the local government as charges and share a sizable portion (no, not of the garbage but the money) with the former, is a fool-proof mechanism perfected over the years by `public servants' in government for all kinds of contract dole-outs.  The problem is, as usual, that not even half the sanctioned funds get used for the assigned purpose because of leakages. That also means the contractor has far less resources to do the job and reluctantly does a quarter of the required work.  Accountability is non existent simply because this is a classic case of `fence eating the crop'.

The above situation is further complicated by health-conscious villagers around Bangalore suddenly developing the temerity to ask the government why their villages should act as dumps for Bangalore's garbage.  How can they?  The city has given them so much (!!), what is a daily dose of  some hundred tonnes of garbage in return?  While MoG is roiled seriously at this revolt, they cannot openly retaliate; not because their collective  conscience has woken up from the perpetually moribund state and their minds' eyes have suddenly been opened to the physical and moral wrong being perpetrated on the villagers; but because ultimately they need all the votes from all those surrounding villages.  Urban dwellers are probably not going to vote anyway for the party in power because garbage is not being cleared, among other things; it is not politically savvy to be bitten from both ends!  The only prudent thing to do is to look for another set of unsuspecting villages further out, which will be suckered into receiving `the wealth of garbage' with open arms, using, what else - bribes to the village chieftains and other important folks and an one-time-bonus of toddy and trinkets for the general populace.  This works better for the MoG because with the garbage moving out to the next concentric circle around the city, distance increases from Bangalore and garbage disposal can justifiably become costlier.  Who do you think benefits??

A somewhat optimistic, brave, new officer was indeed put in charge of the utility that oversees the garbage disposal.  He started in earnest by going around the city early in the morning, talking to workers and encouraging them to do the needful.  He seemed enthusiastic, despite the stink associated with his rounds and our hearts warmed to him.  Agreements with all existing contractors were to be cancelled and companies with expertise were to be brought in for garbage disposal.  Simultaneously he also pushed the city government to put out rules regarding garbage segregation at the source, that is, at people's homes.  Well begun, we thought.   But, within a month or so, this officer has sought a transfer out of that, errr, garbage!  We do not know the exact provocation for this request, but we can surely hazard a good guess.  If the steps taken are allowed to fructify, the racketeering in garbage will reduce significantly and clearing might truly happen.   Companies with expertise, especially the foreign ones, may not `participate' in the established `you-line-my-pocket-and-I-line-yours' routine, thereby depriving the MoG of serious cashflow.  They may actually do a good job, instituting proper recycling processes etc, which will shut down this avenue for MoG forever.  More critically, if this succeeds, what about all those other dysfunctional areas like road-repairs and other civic work?  Could there be a clamour for change in all those too, thereby accelerating the deprivation of the MoG?  With so much at stake, would the MoG permit such good officers to succeed?  Obviously not.

Now, Bangaloreans themselves do not come out smelling like roses, from this garbage crisis.  A very simple mechanism to segregate dry, wet and other wastes was communicated to everyone.  Each household was to hand over segregated waste to the cleaners.  Instead of doing this bit diligently, mixed garbage was handed over, rejected by the cleaners and dutifully dumped by our own respected fellow citizens in the usual place, the street corners.  Actually one serious lady cleaner told the media `if educated people like these do not segregate properly after all the instructions, what do we cleaners do'?  We can conveniently blame the cleaners, the system, the city government and everyone else in and out of sight, for various things like lack of training, poor communication, absence of infrastructure etc.  But, ultimately we are not talking rocket science, but garbage, for God's sake.  How difficult is it to adhere to some basics and ensure that we do not provide any excuse to anyone to dump the garbage back on the roadside??  If we cannot even do that, do we deserve anything better than what we get now?  Without the active involvement and co-operation of the people at ground level, no such initiative will succeed and despite all the hullabaloo created by city dwellers, as of now we are part of the problem, not the solution.

It is funny that legislators and city government officials from Bangalore regularly do foreign jaunts to exotic locations to learn governance and management but things seldom get better and quality of life in the city goes down a few notches annually.  There is a city in Gujarat, which almost got overwhelmed by plague a decade or so back - Surat.  Today it is very clean, thanks to the work of a couple of administrators, one of them is a resident of Bangalore now, I believe.  So, the city need not look elsewhere to get a blueprint of a possible solution.  But, is there a desire to do that?  If there is, city officials could have learnt temporary solutions from neighbouring cities like Chennai, whose solution for garbage disposal may not be ideal but at least it seems to work.  But given the political and chauvinistic sensitivity, that would be anathema, I am sure.  So why not Gujarat, which is politically aligned to Bangalore and does not need Cauvery water from Karnataka? Ultimately, if politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and people themselves do not collectively rise above the garbage levels we have all sunk to, in order to find lasting solutions, who is to blame?


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