Residents have been grappling with health issues including nausea, breathing problems, and headaches for years now, all owing to the pungent fumes emanating from the municipal solid waste plant, allege protesters.

Protesting the appalling living conditions, air and water pollution caused by prolonged mismanagement of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Plant in Bengaluru’s Electronic City, hundreds of citizens from Chikkanagamangala, Doddanagamangala and adjacent villages staged a large-scale protest in the vicinity of the plant on August 18, Thursday. “Owing to the pungent fumes emanating from the plant, the residents here have grappled with health issues including nausea, breathing problems, and headaches for years now. We have been protesting against this since 2018, even though the COVID-19 pandemic had caused a break in between,” says Pranay Dubey, an area resident and member of the Electronic City Rising group. “This is our fourth such protest,” he says.

According to Pranay, the untreated leachate allegedly being released from the MSW plant has seeped into the soil and polluted the groundwater, along with the lakes and the ecosystem they sustain in the region. This situation has negatively impacted the livelihoods of the locality’s residents, villagers and farmers, as well as the industries in the area managed by the Electronics City Industrial Township Authority (ELCITA), he said.

“We are demanding the plant’s closure because the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has not been able to contain its side-effects properly. We are deeply unhappy about this continued apathy. The plant stands in violation of several environmental provisions,” he told TNM. “Every time we reach out to the BBMP authorities, they promise us improvement. But we are yet to see any action.”

Shutdown this plant, none of the provisions in SWM Rules 2016, Environment Protection Act etc has been followed till date, BBMP is flouting all rules and regulations & @karnatakakspcb @Srinivas_IFS are just mute spectators, did nothing to stop pollution from this plant. Act now!

Notably, the residents’ protests were acknowledged back in October 2019 by then Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan, who wrote to the BBMP asking it to consider shifting the waste plant to a less inhabited area. Former Upalokayukta Justice Subhash B Adi, who is the chairperson of the state level committee of the National Green Tribunal, had also observed that mixed waste was being burnt in the plant.

However, the issue is not just the plant, says Pushpendra, another area resident. “The quality of roads, connectivity, water supply and drainage system are all issues that need to be looked into. The roads here are not fit for vehicles like cars and scooters; they are fit only for tractors. I also have no idea how all the apartments here were given permission to be built without a proper drainage system. Things here are in a very bad state,” he said. 

Responding to the objections raised at the protest, BBMP Joint Commissioner (South Zone) Jagadish K Naik stated that the civic body was committed to developing the villages around the plant. A total of Rs 8 crore has been allocated by the BBMP for the development of these villages, he said. “I personally went down to the protest site to speak to the residents, local authorities and elected representatives to discuss their issues, in order to arrive at a solution,” he added.

The Joint Commissioner, however, stated that while the residents had every right to make these demands, solving all of them in one go was not immediately possible. “They have also made demands for the arrangement of water supply from the river Cauvery. These processes take time to complete,” he said.

According to Pushpendra, the BBMP official has promised the residents to keep them updated on the progress being made in this regard. “He said that this time, they would upload documents on Twitter about the project developments, besides putting up a poster at the site of the plant every 3-4 months to give further updates on the work they have done,” the protester said. Most residents, however, remain unconvinced by these assurances.