Cooke Town and Malleswaram RWAs Urge Civic Body to Improve Waste Management
On Saturday, residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) from Bengaluru neighbourhoods, including Cooke Town and Malleswaram, urged civic authorities to strengthen garbage collection, promote composting at source, and increase transparency in waste management during a discussion on urban waste solutions.
During the discussion, representatives from several neighbourhoods shared practical solutions to tackle garbage blackspots, improve waste collection, and make the city cleaner.
Raja Shanmugam of the Cooke Town Residents Association shared how citizen monitoring helped improve garbage collection in his locality. He noted that when the neighbourhood was plagued by garbage blackspots, an association member began visiting the auto-tipper attendance point at 5:30 a.m. every day. Once attendance started being monitored, the number of operating vehicles rose from five or six to about 11 or 12, which significantly improved collection and eliminated blackspots.
Similarly, Rajesh from Malleswaram shared that Sampige Road was previously strewn with garbage. After residents raised concerns with the civic body, authorities increased the number of waste-collection trips at different hours of the day to prevent garbage from piling up. Alexander James added that similar community-driven initiatives had worked in his locality as well.
To improve overall waste management, Amith Nigli and Vinod Jacob suggested introducing a ward-ranking system to foster healthy competition among residents and civic officials. Nigli also proposed an online dashboard with a public feedback mechanism to monitor cleanliness and civic performance.
Other residents highlighted issues in the city's peripheral areas. Vinod V Joshi from Huskur Main Road stated that garbage collection remains irregular in panchayat areas experiencing rapid apartment construction. HR Sreenivasa Rao of Thanisandra expressed concerns that civic resources and funding were not being distributed equitably across the expanding city.
Subhash Shetty of Nagasandra pointed out that uncollected garbage clogs stormwater drains and eventually reaches lakes.
Additionally, V Shisharjan, Chief Executive Officer of Path Watch, noted that waste management responsibilities are fragmented across multiple agencies, with auto tippers, the forest wing, and other agencies handling different types of waste separately. Christopher Cruz argued that zoning violations, where residential properties house multiple dwelling units or commercial establishments, cause auto tippers to fill up too quickly.
To address collection issues, Prakash DR of Osborne Road and Vijayalakshmi of Rustam Bagh suggested that the civic body provide standardised garbage drums or bins to households to improve waste segregation.
