With the looming closure of the Mandur landfill to waste from BBMP, the knee-jerk response has been to look for other places to dump the waste. This is morally wrong, unworkable, and totally un-necessary. BBMP has no right to take its trash outside its own jurisdiction. If it must do so, it should seek the permission of the panchayats in which it wants to dump the waste. The chances are, the panchayat will not agree. In which case, BBMP has two choices - either incentivise the panchayat (by paying them a fee to accept the waste), or manange the waste within BBMP boundaries. This is the framework within which waste is managed all over the world. Nobody has a right to dump his trash in anyone elses backyard. City councils therefore negotiate with villages to buy dumping rights in the rural areas, and villages use that money to create infrastructure for waste management, and jobs in the process. Three years ago, after the protest padayatra from Mandur, I had proposed to the State Government to pass the Dumping Saaku bill, which enshrines this logic. At one shot, it will free many villages in the state from the risk of being dumped on by cities. And at the same time, it will force cities to start thinking about their own responsibility to minimise and process the waste generated in urban areas. One day or the other we will be forced to accept this reality. Once BBMP is broken up into smaller cities, this fight will get even uglier, with South Bangalore or Whitefield or Dasarahalli refusing to accept waste from each other, for exactly the same reasons. Better to accept the inevitability of doing the right thing in the long run, and embrace the decency of doing it now.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 07:36:06 +0000
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