Good Morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

I have shifted houses twice in my short time in Bengaluru, but one thing has remained unchanged: my morning ritual of listening for the whistles of the friendly folks from the municipal corporation who come to collect our waste. 

It’s been a while since I moved from Kerala, but some things about Bengaluru’s waste collection and disposal system still stump me. Just how do you effectively carry out door-to-door collection in a city of this size? In my locality, at least, it’s quite inconsistent. Some days, it’s on time. Others, I just sit and wait. And wait. And wait. When the system fails to deliver, makeshift dumpsters spawn along the roads—a pervasive issue that most of us in the city choose to overlook every day.

I found out just a few days ago that there are no corporation dumpsters or common-waste collection areas in many localities because door-to-door collection is mandated.

The reason: if you don’t have door-to-door collection, how do you enforce garbage segregation?

I know most people don’t kick off a conversation about Bengaluru’s problems with waste management. More often than not, it’s about the terrible traffic, or the pothole-strewn roads, or the painfully slow metro construction, or the inadequate bus network, or—topping the list for newcomers—the sky-high rents. 

But waste management is such an important part of what keeps a city healthy, and one so often overlooked. Which is why I was glad we spent quite a bit of time talking about it in this week’s episode of Two by Two, alongside all the other usual challenges and how Bengaluru can overcome them. Joining hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan was Pravar Chaudhary, creative director at Bengawalk—a familiar internet name for people in the city, known for regular updates on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and Youtube on all Bengaluru developments. 

It was a particularly spirited discussion, but when you put three people who love Bengaluru in a room together, what else can you expect? 

Two By Two • EPISODE 47

Who broke Bengaluru, and how do we fix our cities?

There is an end to the city’s woes. It just needs a lot of people to come together

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The easy answer is: the local governing body, which in Bengaluru is the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), responsible for civic administration and urban development in most of the city. But as Pravar pointed out, BBMP doesn’t have as much control as it first appears. 

Most people don’t think of the railways when they think about Bengaluru. But guess what? They could have been a solution to many of the city’s problems. Unfortunately, they have never been utilised to their full potential.

There are efforts to bring Bengaluru’s railways back to life, but Pravar thinks that they are at least 20–30 years away from properly paying off.

Why? Well, it’s best if you tune in to the full episode if you want to do the subject justice. There is much more that’s covered in the one-and-a-half-hour discussion, which I frankly can’t address in a single newsletter. 

And once you are done, do remember to write to [email protected] with your own ideas for making Bengaluru a better city. 

Regards,
Hari Krishna

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