Even as the city has more than 15,000 waste pickers, the BBMP has been complaining that it is short of hands to clear garbage.
Even as the city has more than 15,000 waste pickers, the BBMP has been complaining that it is short of hands to clear garbage.
The BBMP itself has identified 5,200 waste pickers. But it now appears as though the Palike has forgotten their existence. Most of the waste pickers start their rounds early in the morning. They pick up dry waste and sell them to shops, which recycle the garbage.
Experts opine that the BBMP could have started off with the Pune model, where the waste pickers are integrated into the waste management system. Explaining the system in Pune, Nalini Shekhar, founder of Hasiru Dala a co-operative working towards the benefit of waste pickers, said, “In Pune, we worked on the same project. There the issues and situations are different. The waste pickers and pourakarmikas are not different. They are the same. They collect both wet and dry waste from over 40% of the city and give it to the bio-gas converters and the recyclers. They are paid a certain amount by the public for collection.”
“They (waste pickers) can be accommodated in other places. More than 17 bio-gas conversion units are coming up in the city. Waste pickers can be used in managing them instead of employing and training a whole new batch of people,” she suggests.
Along with this, the waste pickers can be used in organic waste convertors.
BBMP wakes up
Now, after the stench of the city has reached international media, the BBMP has woken up. It has sent out circulars to zonal offices to employ waste pickers if they are short of hands. “We have decided to use their workforce too to pick waste. It would only help us as they will have enough to sell and the city can be cleaned,” said BBMP commissioner, Rajneesh Goel.
However, there are some practical challenges.
“The pourakarmikas pick fights with us when we go to pick up plastic and sale-able materials. We are also trying to clean up the community just like them. But they want to give as much garbage as possible to their contractors and leave us with muck to pick up from,” said John, a waste picker working at Tannery Road.
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