Two-day strike leaves residents in a mess.

BENGALURU: As garbage piled up for two days, residents across the city expressed their anger over the civic body’s failure to handle waste.

Shiv Kumar, general secretary of Domlur residents welfare association (RWA), said Parts of Domlur have been stinking. I spoke to some pourakarmikas who said they were willing to work, but the contractors were forcing them to go back home.

Nithya Reddy, a resident of Richmond Town, said garbage hadn’t been picked up on Monday and Tuesday. We contacted all residents and asked them not to leave their garbage outside their homes as it Wasn’t being picked up. Some BBMP pourakarmikas picked up the waste and piled it up on two streets, she rued.

In Whitefield too, residents faced similar problems.Quite a few residents kept their garbage in their houses, but some residents of Vijaynagar left plastic packets of trash outside their houses, creating black spots. The worst part is that waste that was segregated is now mixed, said Devyani Trivedi, a volunteer with Whitefield Rising.

In Ramamurthynagar, garbage had not been picked up from Sunday. Thanks to what’s going on between the contractors and BBMP, the roads have become dumpyards, said B Veeresh, a resident of Vijayanagar.

The garbage generated over the past few days is higher than usual due to the Ganesh Chathurti celebrations across the city.

We celebrated the festival in a big way. All the waste generated was packed in bags and kept on the side of the road, where it still

remains, said Shivashankara Reddy, secretary of Brindavan Layout RWA.

Workers yet to get pay directly from BBMP

Members of the BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha (BBMP Contract Pourakarmikas Union) held a protest against non-payment of wages outside the BBMP head office on Tuesday. We haven’t received wages for the past three months. Contractors are saying they can’t pay us because BBMP has not released the money, said Nirmala M, general secretary of the union. In March 2017, the

government said the contract system would be abolished, and that our wages would be paid directly to us. But BBMP hasn’t done either of these things.

Vinay Sreenivasa of Alternative Law Forum said: Workers wages were increased in August last year, but BBMP has only paid the arrears for three of seven months. The mayor said the wages would be paid by September 5, but did not say anything about arrears. She said it would take time to do away with the contract system and make payments directly.