Mysore Road still to recover from rain havoc

Mysore Road still to recover from rain havoc
DH News Service, Bangalore:
Last weeks deluge has left many parts of the City in a mess. One such area is Mysore Road. One can easily understand why the City has lost the tag of Garden City if one walks into this area.

Due to excessive silt deposit from Vrishabhavathi Valley and the open drainage that passes through Mysore Road, rubbish and filth is strewn all over main roads causing an unpleasant experience for pedestrians and motorists. Each time it rains, they are forced to wade through waterlogged roads.
Internal roads are no better. Low-lying areas connected to Mysore Road have turned into garbage yards. A pile of garbage is scattered in Guddadahalli for the past few days. Residents have almost forgotten when the Palike van visited their area to clear garbage.
“The Palike vehicles have not been visiting internal roads. The problem in this area is residents dump garbage wherever they wish. Due to festival celebrations, a lot of plastic and household waste had accumulated on roads. Rains added to this,” complained Noor, who runs a petty grocery shop in the area. “We are used to dumping all the garbage in the open drain that runs through our area.
Everybody does it. There is no specific location to discard waste,” said Saritha Rani, a housewife.
The situation at Pantarpalya is still worse. The entire locality has an unbearable stench due to accumulation of garbage. “We are used to living in such conditions,” reacts Andamma, a resident.
Srinivas Reddy, Solid Waste Management Contractor (Basavangudi), said there were problems with movement of trucks due to rains on Mysore Road and other rain-hit areas.
“I could not run my five trucks everyday during rains. Because of Ganesha festival production of garbage has also increased,” he said.
As trucks found it difficult to ferry waste to dumping yards outside the city, accumulation of garbage has increased.
Ravi Naidu, solid waste management contractor (Padmanabhanagar) said “On Saturday two of my trucks were stranded in a village near Bidadi. They were lifted from the ditches with the help of earth movers. As a result clearance of garbage was badly hit.”
However L T Gayathri, Chief Health Officer of BBMP maintained that garbage collection was not hit due to rains.
“Garbage collection is taking place in all the areas coming under the jurisdiction of BBMP even during rainy days. Often people don’t dump garbage at designated collection points. The public should cooperate in keeping the city clean. If garbage collection vans designated by Palike don’t visit a certain area regularly, complaints can be made by calling health control room on 22975585,” she said.