Civic workers who routinely remain absent from duty will face dismissal from service, Greater Bengaluru Development Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said on Saturday.

Speaking after a meeting with MPs, MLAs, and MLCs on civic issues at Vidhana Soudha, Mr. Gowda said nearly 30% of civic workers deployed at various locations were not reporting for duty regularly.

“Three notices will be issued to workers who fail to attend duty. If they do not respond to the notices, action will be initiated to dismiss them from service as per the rules,” he said.

Mr. Gowda said door-to-door garbage collection was a primary responsibility of civic workers and that absenteeism was contributing directly to the emergence of new garbage black spots.

“If 30% of civic workers do not report for work every day, how can we keep the city clean?” he asked.

New waste management plan

A total of 33 waste management packages have been formulated, of which 21 have received approval. The process of issuing work orders to contractors is under way, and they have been directed to commence operations within two months, Mr. Gowda said.

Under the new system, existing auto-tippers with a capacity of around one tonne will be replaced with vehicles capable of carrying three tonnes of waste. The GPS tracking will be mandatory, with each vehicle assigned a designated route that it must follow every day.

“The city currently has the capacity to collect around 5,200 tonnes of waste a day. This will be increased to about 9,000 tonnes a day under the new system,” the Minister said.

He stressed that every household would have waste collected at its doorstep, and those unable to hand over waste at the designated time can keep garbage bags on their compound wall or grill, from where collection staff will pick it up.

Mr. Gowda said a public awareness campaign would be launched to familiarise citizens with the new waste-disposal system.

Meanwhile, the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) has engaged contractors to remove abandoned and unused vehicles from public spaces. The Minister urged elected representatives to monitor the process in their areas and report problems to officials. He also asked local representatives to monitor garbage clearance and the cleaning of private vacant sites.

Union condemns

However, the Karnataka State Municipal Workers’ Union has condemned Mr. Gowda’s remarks of 30% absenteeism. The union alleged that such remarks reflected a feudal mindset and said the Minister’s conduct should be condemned by the public.

“If that (absenteeism) is the case, what are the supervisors doing? Action should be taken against those who are not working. Instead, it is not right to make remarks that insult everyone,” said Syed Mujeeb, general secretary of the union.

The statement said a Minister should not turn allegations of individual dereliction of duty into collective humiliation.