Karaga, Cricket, Garbage collide in Bengaluru

Is Bengaluru the worst municipality in the country? Living in this city, it certainly feels like it. There is so much to be angry about in Bengaluru these days.

- Shoba Narayan

Is Bengaluru the worst municipality in the country? Living in this city, it certainly feels like it. There is so much to be angry about in Bengaluru these days. Cricket fans have died in a stampede and still the state government is passing the buck, scapegoating officers so that they can escape blame.

On April 1, the BBMP imposed a "garbage tax", collecting additional money for doing its job. This week, it crowed that the collections were so robust that the BBMP had collected half its annual target in just two months. I wasn't present in Chinnaswamy stadium on that dark day when 11 cricket fans died. But I can speak from personal experience about this garbage tax.

I live in a building in Central Bangalore. Each apartment in my complex pays the garbage tax. But here is the thing. BBMP takes away nothing from our building. No garbage, nothing. The reason is that we have contracted with an organisation called Hasiru Dala which takes away our wet waste, our recycled material and our electronic waste. We compost 10% of our waste in our building. To restate: BBMP's intersection with our building in terms of garbage is zero. Yet, we pay, and not just a small amount.