Bellahalli quarry catches fire, garbage to haunt Bengaluru again

BENGALURU: Garbage menace may haunt Bengaluru again as the Bellahalli quarry, where all of city's garbage was being dumped after seven waste processing plants stopped functioning, caught fire on Tuesday. Villagers said that they saw the fire around 6.30 pm and immediately alerted the police and fire department.

Nine fire tenders were rushed to the spot and they started fighting fire from 7.30 pm. But the blaze had not been contained till late in the night.

Chandrashekar, a villager from Kannur – which is just a kilometre away from the quarry, said, “Every day around 250 truckloads of garbage is dumped into the quarry as all waste processing plants set up by the BBMP have stopped working.”

The BBMP has seven waste processing plants at Kannahalli, Seegehalli, Subbarayanapalya, Doddabidirakalli, Lingadheerana halli, Kudlu and Chikkanaga mangala, but they have either stopped functioning or functioning partially because of the protests by villagers staying near these plants.

With the fire in the quarry, BBMP garbage contractors may not have any place to dump waste and suspend their operations.

Chandrashekar said, “We’ve been facing a lot of issues due to dumping of garbage. Kannur Lake which is just few metres away is fully polluted. Added to this is the stench and mosquito menace.” He hinted that the villagers may stop BBMP trucks and prevent them from dumping garbage into the quarry.

“We repeatedly warned the BBMP that the Bellahalli quarry was a ticking time bomb and it could explode anytime as the waste is not handled scientifically. Trucks dump waste randomly and go," he said.

The Karnataka High Court last Friday directed the BBMP to reopen the seven waste processing plants within four weeks and tasked the seven BBMP zonal joint commissioners with the job.

BBMP joint commissioner Solid Waste Management Sarfaraz Khan was not available for comments.