NGT seeks report on biomedical waste

The principal bench in New Delhi comprising Justice K Ramakrishnan and Expert Member Nagin Nanda added that the status report should also have details on the action taken by the authorities against the hospitals and healthcare centres that have not complied with the prescribed rules. The bench was holding the hearing through video conferencing on a plea moved by activist Jawaharlal Shanmugam as party-in-person and Federation of Consumer Organisations.

In addition, the bench has also sought for details on the number of applications pending for authorisation, how many were disposed of and the number of healthcare centres functioning without any consent to operate or authorisation as is required under the rules.

Directing the authorities here to send the report within three weeks to the tribunal by e-mail, the bench also directed both the State and the pollution control board to mention in the report about the disposal of liquid bio-medical waste and whether the healthcare centres in the State have proper facilities for treating the bio-medical liquids that is discharged from these centres.

Several changes and additions were introduced to the new Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016, to further improve the collection, segregation, processing, treatment and disposal of the biomedical wastes in an environmentally sound manner. Also, the existing biomedical waste treatment facilities need to meet the revised standards of emissions and effluent discharge.

However, the common cause raised in both the cases related to non-compliance of the provision of Bio Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2016 and the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 in the government-run and private sector healthcare centres in Tamil Nadu.

The case has been posted to April 24 for consideration of report and hearing.