Iffath Fathima By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: A group of techies who visited Siddara Betta in Tumakuru district recently, were aghast to see a mountain of trash on the trek trail. That was when they decided to log into their swachh mission.



The group of 71, led by Veerabhadrappa P, reached the place on Sunday and stayed there overnight. They started the trek the next morning at 6 am. And believe it or not, by noon, they collected about 1,386 kg of waste, of which 124 kg was water bottles alone.

Siddara Betta, surrounded by hills, temples and caves situated at 1,700 feet, is about 100km from Bengaluru. This place is often visited by trekkers for the breath-taking panoramic view from the hilltop. The hill also sees many devotees who come to pray at the shrine of Lord Shiva located inside the caves.

Trekkers and devotees leave a trail of waste, turning the place into a trash spot. The rubbish includes plastic, especially water bottles, agarbatti and kumkum packets, food waste. Following their decision to clean up, Veerabhadrappa approached Sri Veerabhadra Shivacharya Swamy of Balehonnur Mutt (who looks after the temple at Siddara Betta).

The seer was more than happy to have them.“Though the trek trail is just about 3 km one-way, we could see heaps of waste all along. It was really shocking. Also, we found that there were no bins provided and no one to clean up the place later, which resulted in the accumulation of more and more waste. After we saw the shocking state of the place, we took it upon us to clean the area,” said Veerabhadrappa.

Anil Kumar, a member of the group, and others decided that before cleaning up the place, they must install dustbins. When Kumar posted in his trek group about the condition of Siddara Betta, many people came forward to help. “Since it is a small trek, we decided that about six bins would be enough on the trail. All of us pooled in money which came up to Rs 15,000 and we procured the bins of 120 litres each. After we got the bins, we set off on our ‘operation cleanup’,” said Kumar.

“We formed groups with each team having 10 members. Some did not take part in cleaning as they had to bring the huge dustbins. At the end, we filled up 77 gunny bags with trash,” said Subrahmanya Kumar A, another member.

After the successful clean-up, the group located a scrap merchant who took the bottle waste. The panchayat used a tractor to carry the rest of the waste for disposal. The techies said they will revisit the place next month to check if people are making good use of the dustbins. They will also take up the cleaning work again.