BANGALORE: Garbage collection is likely to be hit in the western parts of the city from Saturday as the lorries that lifted the waste from these areas in the last two days have not been able to dispose it of till late on Friday night.

Around 120 lorries loaded with 600 tonnes of garbage have lined up near Amba Bhavani Temple in Subedarpalya of Peenya-Dasarahalli City Municipal Council (CMC) from Thursday as officials from the Forest Department have fenced the land, where the garbage was being dumped till now.

This 20-acre land was under the possession of Bylappa, and the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) was paying him Rs. 1.6 lakh per month for allowing dumping. This apart, each lorry driver was reportedly paying him Rs. 100 or five litres of diesel before dumping the waste.

Officials of the Forest Department, after a survey, realised that this piece of land belonged to the department and that it had been encroached upon. So, they reportedly issued a notice to Mr. Bylappa and also fenced the land.

According to the private garbage contractors, some drivers managed to dump the waste in neighbouring villages on Thursday night.

"But the remaining lorries have lined up near the `Bylappa land' as they have nowhere to go. This is likely to affect clearance of garbage generated at Chamarajpet, Chickpet, Malleswaram, Rajajinagar, Gandhinagar and parts of Yeshwanthpur on Saturday," general secretary of Bangalore Mahanagara Swachate Lorry Maalikara Mattu Guttigedarara Sangha S. Balasubramaniam said.

He said the Forest Department had also seized two lorries and got nine drivers arrested for dumping waste on their land. "We have managed to get the drivers released on bail. But the lorries are still with them," he said.

BMP Deputy Commissioner (Health) Manu Baligar and Joint Commissioner (West) M.A. Khalid admitted that the lorries had lined up as the land had been fenced. "We are working out some solution for this problem and are hopeful that the situation will not worsen," Mr. Baligar said.

Mr. Khalid, who has been assigned the task of finding a solution, said that they were identifying alternative land at three locations for dumping. "As a temporary arrangement, we have managed to get around 80 lorries to dump the waste at other places. We are hoping to solve the problem by Saturday," he said.

But the contractors, whose term has been extended till the Government approves the new tenders, are worried. More than 350 lorries are deployed to transport the city's daily garbage of 2,200 tonnes. Around 10,000 workers, including 6,300 contract pourakarmikas, are deployed to clean the city.

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