HYDERABAD: Believe it or not, a good number of healthcare facilities are yet to be covered by the four Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBMWTF) authorised by Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) to collect waste from Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts.
This means, a good chunk of hazardous waste, capable of creating serious health issues, is likely being disposed of in an unscientific manner. A cursory reading of the Bio-Medical Waste Management rules that came into existence two years ago has exposed various loopholes in the system.
According to the pollution control board, there is a total of 51,775 beds in health care facilities across Hyderabad, Rangareddy-I(RR-I) and Rangareddy-II(RR-II) divisions. According to data available on the websites of these CBMWTFs, waste from about 39,000 beds are collected by these units combined. This means 12,755 beds are not covered under these facilities, which raises doubts on where the waste generated by these beds end up.
Small-sized biomedical waste treatment facilities lament lack of a uniform policy on per-bed-pricing charged by CBMWTFs and also lack of guidelines as to how many beds a CBMWTF can cover. Bharat Kumar Reddy, head of operations and management at Sattva Global Services said, “As per the rules, total time from generation of waste till treatment should not exceed 48 hours. However, as some biomedical waste treatment facilities are offering treatment services at cheaper prices, even health care facilities located very far from the treatment plants are giving away their waste to them.
As a result, time-period set by the rules are violated.” When contacted, a TSPCB official said, “The board is working on developing a policy on prices that can be charged by CBMWTFs and area to be covered. However, keeping in mind certain problems, we are seeking legal advice on the matter and have also written to the pollution board to provide more clarity.
New recruitment strengthens TSPCB manpower
Hyderabad: Telangana State Pollution Control Board on Monday inducted 23 newly recruited Environment Engineers. Soon, 25 newly recruited technical staff will also be inducted by the board who would strengthen the manpower in the board’s laboratories. With the new inductees overall strength of the board will become 158, of the sanctioned strength of 210 engineers and technical staff.
Government to frame solid waste management policy
The government will formulate solid waste management rules shortly, principal secretary to the municipal administration department Arvind Kumar has said and called for a comprehensive survey of rag-pickers so that local bodies can utilise them in solid waste management.
Presiding over state-level meeting held at the Secretariat on Monday, he said that Administrative Staff College of India was asked to draft solid waste management policy guidelines in consultation with relevant stakeholders to find out what steps could be taken by them for segregation and storage of solid waste.