Dustbin despair on Bangalore’s MG Road

Dustbin despair on Bangalore’s MG Road
Deccan Herald

The ‘Garden City’ may soon be called the ‘Garbage City’ if the neglect to its principal road is not addressed.

Picking up an ice-cream cup to give you company while window shopping on MG Road? Be prepared either to carry the cup with you well out of MG Road after you have finished eating or simply fling it on the side of the road and walk on. Reason?

The famed Mahatma Gandhi Road, supposed to be the showcase road of Bangalore, has only one tiny BMP dustbin on the entire stretch from Anil Kumble Circle to Symphony Cinema. This lone dustbin clings to the side of a street lamp in front of the Deccan Herald office on the middle of the road.

Blame it on the absence of dustbins or simply the lack of civic sense among citizens, but MG Road is far from clean. According to BMP sources, the road generates Rs 8,04,01,820 annual revenue for the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike from the 1,562 properties between Trinity Circle and Anil Kumble Circle. For the Palike which makes crores from this road alone, is placing of dustbins at strategic points a difficult task?

Waste collection

The door-to-door garbage collection system which phased out the cement dustbins is also in place on MG Road. While the day collection is the responsibility of the BMP, the night cleaning (between 6 pm to 12 midnight) has been given out to a private contractor, Mr Lakshman.

“The BMP collects waste from the shops during the day. In the evening, we sweep the road and collect waste, which is picked up from specific points at 6 am,” Mr Lakshman says, and adds that earlier, there were four such pick-up points for lorries, but this has been reduced to one recently.

There are a good number of food outlets on MG Road, including the street vendors selling peanuts, bhel puri, ice cream, etc. Most people like to gorge on these while walking on MG Road. But how many conscientious citizens actually carry the cup with them till they find a dustbin?

Food World has its own bin for its customers. So does the bhelpuriwalla in front of Plaza Cinema, who has a cane basket for the waste. The rest of the garbage is all over the road.

MG Road has some of the most happening pubs and shopping centres, besides being an elite hangout for youngsters. But the paper cups and waste continue to carelessly lie on the road. This perhaps, calls for a few lessons on taking care of our city.

A casual stroller or a citizen walking to a building on MG Road should be prepared for some heavy-duty hurdles, some unpleasant sights, sounds and smells. Pan-stained floor tiles, crushed paper cups and plates carelessly strewn on either side of the pavement and even a lazy stray dog to greet you.

Walking itself will be an intermittent zig-zag with the walker having to dodge other walkers, street hawkers, water puddles and heaps of garbage. Patches of the pavement have not been laid. Weeds growing out of the corners of the footpath cause the tiles at some places to crack. Stones are also abandoned on the sides of the pavement, mostly leftovers from last week’s cement patchwork in place of broken tiles.

The huge pile of garbage behind the transformer on the right side of the G K Vale photo studio clearly goes unattended to. If this is the state of Bangalore’s prime road, the City will have to soon push the ‘Garden City’ tag aside and be nicknamed Garbage City.