Basavaraj Itnaal For a city that boasts of IT hegemony in the country, Bangalore has a dismal record of garbage management. The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP), whose obligatory function is to collect, transport and dispose of the municipal solid waste (MSW), is apparently caught up in the politics of one-upmanship. On the garbage management, Rs 90 crore is spent annually. Recently, the chief minister B S Yeddyurappa commented that garbage contractors were a mafia. The contractors say they are being harassed by the officials without giving them adequate facility to dispose off the garbage. Here is an attempt to understand the riddle. The MSW Story The city generates about 3500 metric tonnes per day (MTD) or about 700 truck loads of MSW from house holds, markets, hotels and other commercial establishments. Before Greater Bangalore was formed, the Palike had floated tenders for collection and disposal of garbage in the 100 wards by constituting 30 packages of contracts. The annual cost of the services was estimated to be Rs 90 crore. Many doubts were raised on the issue of service contracts as it meant a three-fold increase in the cost. Further, it was alleged that most contractors belonged to a single family and cartelling was suspected. The then commissioner K Jairaj defended the move saying that all the norms of transparency were followed. If some contractors were related to each other it was beside the point as the Palike ensured all the technical and financial requirements were met, he had maintained. The bids were evaluated by Infrastructure Development Consultanats of Karnataka (IDeCK), a joint venture between Karnataka government and PSU bankers. Garbage has no place Contractors Gopinath Reddy, S Balasubramanya and Bhanu Prathap Reddy told Deccan Herald that as per the terms of service, they had to collect the MSW and transport it to the place designated by the Palike. But the Palike has no adequate place to dump the garbage, they said. The contractors allege that since the officials do not want to own up the failure to provide sufficient disposal facility, they 'invent' ways to make it impossible for contractors to transport MSW. The Supreme Court too had taken the Palike to task in 2003 for not meeting the deadlines to build scientific landfills. ''The officials have no will to streamline the system,'' said contractors. The politics Recently, the Palike entered into an agreement with a landfill site owned by Terra Firma in Doddaballapur and routed about 100 trucks every day. Some trucks were attacked by the villagers and a driver suffered rib injury. Contractors blame that the Palike forced them to take more trucks on the route and villagers took offence. They felt that the Palike should have taken local residents into confidence before allowing them to take MSW there. Joint Commissioner (Health) U A Vasantha Rao rubbished the episode and said; ''It is all stage managed by the contractors.'' The GPS angle Recently, the Palike ordered the contractors to equip all the trucks with geographical positioning system (GPS) so that the travel distance can be better monitored and correct payments made. Rao said that this has not gone well with the contractors and hence all the noise. On the other hand, the contractors said that they were not opposed to GPS. ''We have co-operated with them in installing GPS. In fact, they should fit GPS to all Palike vehicles including the ones used by officials so that the vehicle use is optimised,'' said a contractor. The adminstrative mix up The administration too is equally confused. While doctors trained in medicine have to track the lorries, Rao himself is a commercial tax official. He was taken on deputation as a special officer (resources) and now is elevated to a post that is to be filled by a civil servant (KAS/IAS) as per section 26 of KMC Rules 1977. He still draws salary from commercial tax department and not from BBMP. Contractors allege that lack of expertise too is one of the reasons of mis-management. But Rao says he is willing to quit. ''I am here to serve the city. If I am not needed, I'll quit,'' he said. Rao had written to the commissioner last year to let him go but he was elevated, despite protests from revenue officials who had burnt his effigy in the Palike campus.