Residents trash the move of BBMP regarding the decision to declare Bengaluru ODF

BENGALURU: The decision of the the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to declare the city of Bengaluru as an ‘ep city’ had chalked flak from various resident groups, with the latter that has been demanding the agency to put in place for adequate sanitation-related infrastructure instead of making huge claims.

On Monday the Palike had announced its intention to declare all the 198 wards ODF and sought the objections from the public within 15 days. However, the citizen activists had claimed that there are many areas where the defecation in the open is still continued because of lack of public toilets.

Vishnu Prasad of #Save-Bellandur told the media: “Mahadevapura zone has about 31 villages that lack basic sanitation facilities. It’s the IT hub and has a big floating population of construction labourers. They don’t have basic facilities and defecate in the open. The BBMP has to construct more public toilets.”

Another resident from Whitefield, Sandeep Anirudhan had said that, “We need to have proper facilities. If so much money can be spent to build a bridge, we can also use some to set up toilets.”

As per the data of BBMP, since October, the corporation has approved 2,995 the applications for construction of individual toilets within households. Out of which, 1,639 toilets have been built. “This is the first step. The city can’t completely be open defecation-free with such a huge population. The public needs to understand that it doesn’t mean there won’t be any defecation at all, but it will be monitored under some criteria,” D Randeep, joint commissioner (solid waste management), said.

“ODF is a declaration and not a certification. In these 15 days, we are requesting people to raise objections and bring them to our notice, when we get objections, we will look into the matter and try to address it. As a corporation we have sufficient funds to ensure that Bengaluru can be open defecation-free. If required, we can build 1,000 more toilets; a budget of Rs 80 crore has been allotted for the purpose,” Randeep added.