Cleaning up or piling on? Bengaluru’s ‘garbage-dumping’ drive leaves citizens fuming

Synopsis: A new initiative dubbed Kasa Surisuva Habba, or the “garbage-dumping festival”, launched by Bengaluru’s civic bodies—in which waste is deliberately dumped outside the homes of residents identified as “habitual litterbugs”—has evoked a mixed response from residents and experts. While the civic administration claims the campaign will deter offenders and promote accountability, many citizens and experts argue that it amounts to collective punishment which worsens the city’s already dire waste crisis.

In Bengaluru’s Banashankari, residents woke up to an unusual scene on Thursday, 30 October. Workers from the municipal bodies responsible for collecting and processing the city’s trash were instead dumping it on their streets.

The reason? Some households in the area had been identi