Over 2,500 abandoned vehicles choking residential areas: BBMP

Petty crime and infections due to garbage piled on these vehicles reported

Vasudha Zora | NT

Bengaluru: The number of abandoned vehicles in the city has exponentially grown causing havoc in residential areas and promoting crimes related to drug peddling and vehicle theft.

These vehicles are capable of choking Bengaluru’s unplanned narrow roads and have become breeding grounds for many infections too as they are strewn with garbage too. Bengaluru’s civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) found over 2500 abandoned vehicles encroaching on the city's streets.

According to a survey conducted by the BBMP authorities last year, 784 abandoned vehicles were found in the eastern zone, with Shanti Nagar reporting 326 of these abandoned vehicles followed by Shivajinagar 181 vehicles, CV Raman Nagar with 119, Sarvagnanagar with 60 vehicles, followed by Hebbal and Pulakeshinagr with 56 and 42 vehicles respectively. Various residential associations have constantly raised a voice on the matter and last year the traffic department collected these vehicles and dumped them at the Bingipura dumping ground as per the dumping area provided by the civic body.

Social activist and secretary of Frazer Town Residents Welfare Association (FTRWA), Habiba Subran said, “Most of these vehicles can be found easily in residential areas, parked on the side of major roads, dumping grounds and parking lots. On a road as narrow as Mosque Road, many twowheelers and four-wheelers can be found covered in plastic wraps and sometimes in a broken state parked on the side of the road. ”

She also said that they have remained in the area for years and that nobody from the civic body has ever bothered to collect them, regardless of the constant pleas of the residents living in the area.

Civic and law enforcement authorities agree that the problem is at large as many of these vehicles are used to commit organized crimes, scrap dealers illegally scrape the parts and sell them in black markets, and some of these cars have been left by their previous owners due to mortgage issues, shifting or because they died with a minimum trace of existence. It was initially decided that these vehicles will be collected and sent to the designated dumping ground in Bingipura.

Traffic authorities also plan on auctioning some of the vehicles that remain in decent condition as they can be repaired and reused. In the case of broken vehicles, their parts will be collected and used for recycling.