Bengaluru North City Corporation has asked residents to report unauthorised bulk-waste collection and monitor neighbourhood waste operations as it works to address gaps in door-to-door collection across the city’s northern areas. The initiative includes a dedicated complaint line, QR-based access to auto-tipper details and greater participation by resident welfare associations.
Corporation officials have observed cases in which bulk waste generators hand over their waste to domestic door-to-door collection vehicles instead of authorised bulk-waste transporters. The practice can overload auto tippers, forcing them to make multiple trips to unload waste and disrupting collection from households assigned to those vehicles.
Commissioner Pommala Sunil Kumar said citizens could report such violations to the corporation, which would initiate action against defaulting bulk waste generators. Residents can raise solid-waste-management complaints during the corporation’s special phone-in programme on Tuesdays by calling 9480685705 or 080-22975936/23636671.
The Bengaluru North City Corporation has identified 1,299 bulk waste generators in its jurisdiction. Of these, 182 have registered with the Central Pollution Control Board and 48 have in-situ waste-processing facilities. The corporation classifies bulk waste generators as entities producing more than 100kg of waste per day, apartments with more than 100 units, properties consuming over 40,000 litres of water a day, or properties measuring more than 5,000 square metres in area or 20,000 square metres in built-up area.
The corporation has also asked resident welfare associations to monitor waste-management operations, including the attendance and timings of personnel at mustering points. Each ward has two such points: one for pourakarmikas and another for garbage-collection vehicles. Kumar said officials had been instructed to facilitate citizen access to these points to improve accountability.
Residents can scan division-wise QR codes posted on the corporation’s social-media handles to access contact details of the auto-tipper driver and supervisor assigned to their block. The system is intended to show residents which auto tipper collects waste from a particular area and which pourakarmikas are assigned to a road, allowing them to coordinate with waste workers and avoid littering.
The corporation has also deployed four Prahari vehicles on stretches prone to illegal dumping. Equipped with dashcams, the vehicles send updates to officials, who can use the information to clear dumping spots and identify gaps in door-to-door collection. Kumar said the vehicles were being used alongside the corporation’s localised collection plans.
The new measures follow the transfer of waste collection and transportation responsibilities from Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Ltd to city corporations in August. Following the transfer, Bengaluru North City Corporation prepared division-wise micro plans based on local requirements. Each auto tipper has been assigned approximately 750 to 1,000 households, with routes determined by the number of households, the road network, collection requirements and the time needed to complete each route.
The corporation’s next steps include using citizen complaints, route-level information and monitoring at mustering points to identify collection failures and act against bulk waste generators that do not use authorised transport arrangements.
