BENGALURU: The authorities scrambled to shut down an abandoned quarry-turned landfill that was wreaking havoc on the lives of villagers in Doddagubbi, which is about 20km north of Bengaluru. On Thursday, Doddagubbi gram panchayat blocked access to the dump after TOI enquired with officials about who had authorised the landfill.
Accompanied by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials, a GP team rushed to the quarry, found a debris-laden truck there and seized it for further investigation. The civic body has also deployed marshals at the site 24x7.
The mountain of unsegregated toxic garbage illegally dumped in the quarry, known locally as Byrathi Bande, has been causing air and groundwater pollution, posing a threat to the lives of locals, including immunocompromised inmates of ACCEPT — the state’s largest HIV and AIDS care centre — which stands just a stone’s throw away.
Stench from the landfill could be sensed from a distance when a TOI team visited on May 1. Heaps of waste containing polythene bags, medical waste, and heavy metal spread across acres of land remain proof of official apathy. “Waste is being dumped illegally for six months now,” said Raju K Mathew, chairman of ACCEPT. “As many as 15 inmates of our centre passed away recently,” he said. But he added that there could have been other factors at play besides pollution.
As Mathew struggled to get rid of the flies around him, a truckload of construction waste was being dumped into the wasteland. A black stream of pollutants (leachate mixed with rainwater) flowed from the landfill into nearby waterbodies, which further flow down to Doddagubbi Lake.
“The black stream is running right through our property,” said Prabhath Chandrasekhar, a local. “My family has been residing here for 50 years. We were living happily. My cousins from abroad used to marvel at the clear stream going through our land.”
Cows and birds quench their thirst in the dirty stream now. “I don’t know if they will survive,” said Chandrasekhar. Fish in an adjacent lake have all died because of the pollution, he claimed.
“The groundwater is also polluted. We buy six tankers of water every day,” said Mathew. Samples of groundwater near the landfill site were found unfit for consumption, with hardness levels of 620mg/L — thrice the agreeable limit of 200mg/L. They also reported high levels of total dissolved solids (up to 1,645 ppm, as against the desirable 500 ppm).
Expressing fear that with the onset of monsoon, the “garbage soup” will enter the care centre, Mathew said they will be forced to shut it down if the authorities don’t take any action.
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