Bengaluru South City Corporation has started a five-ward pilot for evening waste collection to tackle roadside garbage blackspots and help residents who cannot hand over waste during morning rounds, Commissioner K.N. Ramesh said on Wednesday.
Under the pilot, vehicles collecting wet and dry waste will operate from 5 p.m. to midnight in four wards under the Bommanahalli Assembly constituency and in Hongasandra ward. The move expands collection beyond the existing morning schedule and is intended to make door-to-door handover easier for households with work and other daytime commitments.
The corporation currently operates 160 waste collection vehicles in the mornings across the five wards. For the evening service, it has deployed between 20 and 25 autos. In Hongasandra, six vehicles—three for wet waste and three for dry waste—will operate in the evening, while 31 autos continue to collect waste in the morning, Mr. Ramesh said.
The pilot follows repeated complaints from residents and Residents’ Welfare Associations about the growth of garbage blackspots in south Bengaluru. Localities including Adugodi, S.G. Palya and areas along Siddapura Road have recently reported roadside accumulation, according to the report.
The complaints have also been linked to enforcement of waste segregation rules. Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited has directed collection vehicles not to accept unsegregated waste. Residents have argued that some households that previously handed over mixed waste to collection vehicles began leaving it on roadsides after those vehicles stopped accepting it.
Evening collection, or collection twice a day, has been a long-standing demand in parts of the city. Residents have used social media to highlight the need for later collection timings and to flag new blackspots. The issue was also raised with Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, who had earlier rejected the proposal on feasibility grounds.
Mr. Gowda had said that accommodating residents’ convenience could require civic authorities to collect garbage throughout the day. He had also said it would not be feasible to ask sanitation workers to collect waste twice daily or appoint additional workers for the purpose.
The current pilot therefore tests a limited evening model using 20 to 25 autos in five wards rather than introducing twice-daily collection across Bengaluru. The corporation’s assessment of the pilot will determine how the service is handled beyond the selected wards, although no further expansion timeline was provided in the report.
