Persistent irregular garbage collection and the daily delay in tipper arrivals have worsened the city’s black spot problem, now compounded by the onset of the monsoon, leaving residents in misery.
Visibly, black spots that were cleared earlier are reappearing, drawing public anger. Adding to the concern, new black spots have emerged in several residential localities, making it difficult for people to walk on the streets. The NammaKasa portal, which tracks blackspots in the city, reported 5,445 active blackspots on Sunday (June 7); just a month earlier, the number stood at 3,200.
Irregular collection
In several parts of the city, waste collection has been irregular for months. Karunakar Bhat, a resident of Marathahalli, said that for the last two to three months, waste collection tippers have been arriving only two or three times a week, leading to a pile-up of garbage at homes. “Not everyone will dispose of waste on the streets and wait for auto-tippers; the authorities should understand. Wet waste, especially, is a concern. The mosquito problem is growing because of this,” Mr. Bhat said.
The issue is not isolated to East Bengaluru but has become common across the city, especially in outer zones, according to residents who spoke to The Hindu. In many areas, garbage collectors have been picking up waste on alternate days or, in many cases, only a few times a week. They often do not collect sanitary waste separately as well.
Drains
Clement Jayakumar, a member of the Mahadevapura Task Force, a civic group, pointed out that the major concern is garbage piling up near stormwater drains and lake fringes. “Heaps of garbage are reaching drains, which has now led to flooding in several areas. Some drains were cleared, but now all of those are clogged again, leading to increased flooding ; even lakes are not spared,” he added.
Mrinalini, a resident of Sarakki, said the stretch near Banashankari Temple has been notorious for garbage blackspots for many years, yet the situation remains unchanged. The authorities neither take action against those responsible nor clear the spot permanently, she added.
Timing issue
Madhav P., a Koramangala resident, said that he has been disposing of waste on the streets because the collection timings do not match his schedule, and his landlord does not allow him to keep a dustbin at the gate for collection when the tippers arrive. “I leave home by 8.30 a.m. and return by 7.30 p.m., and I rarely see garbage collection happening before 8 a.m. I order food on most days, and all those packets just lie at home for days and sometimes even for a week,” he said. “As I cannot dispose of them in the mornings and am left with so many packages, I end up disposing of them at night,” he added.
Civic activist V. Ramprasad explained that such instances occur because the authorities do not have a route optimisation plan or a micro-plan in place. “The plan they have is over a decade old, and no efforts have been made to conduct another study,” he said. Both these plans help manage garbage collection more effectively at the micro level. Mr. Ramprasad, a resident of Thindlu, said timing issues and irregular waste collection persist across the city, and that north Bengaluru is no exception.
Keeping such loopholes in mind, the Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited rolled out an initiative called ‘Kasa Kiosks’, where people who missed collection vehicles could dispose of their waste. One such unit was opened in Adugodi, but when The Hindu visited multiple times, it remained closed. The expansion of such kiosks has also not been taken up.
To address timing issues, civic authorities had also planned to mandate the installation of large dustbins on the ground floor of all buildings with more than two floors. However, these plans, like several others announced in the past, have remained only on paper.
(This is the first of a four part series on the deepening garbage crisis in the city.)
Published – June 07, 2026 07:40 pm IST
