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 while hearing a PIL, filed by social outfit Maitree Sansad in 2003. The PIL alleged that the indifferent attitude of the government in adopting prescribed norms and methods for disposal of bio-medical waste has put 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 Research (in Burla). Thereafter, petitioner counsel Ajay Mohanty submitted the affidavits on the facilities installed and the status of the incinerators at the three colleges. The affidavits were placed before the court on Tuesday.
While taking note of them, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice M S Raman stated, “The court directs that if on examining the affidavits the authorities are required to take corrective action in respect to all the three institutions, they should do so forthwith without waiting for the court’s orders.”
The court expected the government to make a fresh appraisal considering the affidavits submitted by the outfit on the issue. “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.
Earlier, the state government had filed an affidavit stating that the incinerator under the biomedical waste management programme is functioning at full capacity at 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 transmitting 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.
