Image credit: Project Team
In a pilot ward in Bengaluru, Again Resource Labs and partners, the ward’s waste contractor, Corporation, with support from the community plan to create a participatory planning & traceability solution to fix issues with data and context blind SWM.
Bengaluru generates nearly 6,000 tonnes of solid waste daily, yet ranks among India’s lowest-performing cities in the Swachh Survekshan, placed 5th dirtiest in 2025. Despite a large pourakarmika workforce, the city’s waste system operates without ward-level intelligence: there is no accurate data on who generates what waste, where, in what quantities, or whether it is being collected, segregated and processed.
The rationale is that Bengaluru’s waste failures are structural, not effort-based: corporations issue uniform collection contracts across entire wards regardless of road type, habitat type/density, or waste-generating establishment, so narrow residential lanes are treated identically to commercial arterials. This mismatch produces persistent black spots, uncollected waste, and open dumping, and renders community awareness campaigns ineffective because the underlying system was never designed to serve local conditions.
The project’s approach builds on a prior geospatial proof-of-concept in a ward and extends it through a participatory methodology: ground-truthing spatial and building data with the existing collection team and pourakarmikas, who hold irreplaceable local knowledge of access constraints and problem spots; developing a ward-specific collection micro-plan covering routes, vehicles, and frequencies; and piloting it with lightweight QR-code and geo-fencing tracking to measure plan adherence, involving citizens’ groups as accountability partners throughout.
By A-gain Resource Labs, Stratageo and Bintix.
Project Start Date: September 2026
Contact details:
Again Resource Labs
- https://a-gain.in/
- contact@a-gain.in
Stratageo
- https://www.stratageo.in/index.html
- smysorekar@gmail.com
Bintix
- https://bintix.com/
- satheesh@bintix.com