HC poser on biomedical waste disposal
Court Asks Govt for Report From 3 Med Colleges
- Cuttack: The Orissa high court has directed the state government to file a status report on the disposal mechanism of biomedical waste at the medical colleges in Cuttack, Burla and Berhampur
- The court gave the order on Tuesday while hearing a PIL, fi led by social outfit Maitre Sansad in 2003. The PIL alleged that the indifferent attitude of the government towards adopting prescribed norms and methods for disposal of bio-medical waste has out the patients' life at risk in the three medical college hospitals, and the people at large.
- The high court, while hearing the PIL last November, had asked the outfit's representatives to visit the three medical colleges and file affidavits on the disposal of biomedical waste.
- Accordingly, the representatives visited SCB Medical College Hospital, (in Cuttack), MKCG Medical College (in Berhampur) and Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Rese- arch (in Burla). Thereafter, petitioner counsel Ajay Mohanty submitted the affidavits on the facilities installed and the status of the incinerators at the three medical colleges. The affidavits were placed before court onTuesday.
- Taking note of them, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice M S Raman said, "The court directs that if on examining the affidavits the authorities are required to take corrective action in respect of all the three institutions, they should do so forthwith without waiting for the court's orders."
- "The action taken on the affidavits be placed before the court in the form of a status report by the authorities by the next date," the bench said, while posting the matter to April 17 for further consideration of the matter.
- Earlier, the state government had filed an affidavit stating that the incinerator under the biomedical waste management programmed is functioning at full capacity at the SCB Medical College with a login ID and password from the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB).
- The affidavit further stated that the installed online continuous monitoring system is trans- mitting real time monitoring data to the SPCB's server. The incinerators at the other two medical colleges have also been connected to the SPCB portal, the government said.