Although a public interest litigation charging state government's failure in implementing bio medical waste rules is still to be decided by Bombay High Court, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) finds no such violations of rules by the city's hospitals.
MPCB, which is authorized to take action against erring hospitals and nursing homes by the state government, says that most of the medical establishments in the state are complying with the rules.
"The situation is more or less satisfactory as far as BMW management is concerned. Almost all the hospitals in the state, including that of Mumbai, have complied with the bio medical waste rules. There were some hospitals in the state which were not complying with the law some time back. After our actions like show cause notices, things are coming to normal now", said BB Nimbarte, Regional Officer (HQ), who is dealing with the issue for the entire state of Maharashtra.
The MPCB, acting on the directive of the Mumbai High Court, had sent a whopping 3656 show cause notices including 29 in Mumbai, to different medical establishments in various parts of the state asking them to comply with the rules while disposing the bio-medical waste.
Admitting that there were several hospitals and nursing homes in the state, including some big and renowned hospitals in Mumbai, which have been flouting the BMW disposal rules till some time back, Nimbarte said that after the High Court intervention things have changed remarkably. Apart from several small hospitals and nursing homes, the MPCB found big hospitals like JJ Hospital, GT Hospital, Cama Hospital, St George Hospital (all government hospitals), Leelavati Hospital, Hinduja Hospital and Nanawati Hospital in Mumbai flouting the bio-medical waste management rules.
"We had issued show cause notices to all these hospitals some time back and all of them have rectified their mistakes. Our inspectors have inspected these establishments only last week and found them satisfactory", Nimbarte said.
In Mumbai alone, there are around 1600 hospitals which generate around 10 tons of highly dangerous bio-medical waste every day. As per rules, it is mandatory for such institutions to set up requisite bio-medical waste treatment facilities like incinerators, autoclave and microwave systems for treatment of the wastes, or ensure requisite treatment of the waste at a common waste treatment facility.
As the establishment of BMW treatment facilities like incinerators and autoclaves is a costly affair, these highly hazardous wastes are treated at common facilities run by either government or private parties. "In Maharashtra there are 27 common BMW treatment facilities in different districts", said Nimbarte.
In Mumbai, there are only two such facilities. One common incinerator has been established at Sewree and one common autoclave at Taloja which are operated by private parties. There are five transporters engaged in for lifting the bio medical waste from five different areas of Mumbai on a daily basis.
Though the Central government had come out with a Bio-Medical Waste Rules in 1998 following a Supreme Court ruling in this regard, there has been hardly any support from various state governments to enforce these Rules in letter and spirit. Acting on the Supreme Court directive, the Maharashtra government came out with its own rules in the year 2002 and authorized the MPCB to oversee the compliance of these rules.
But, there has hardly been any compliance by the medical establishments in the state even by the big hospitals, leave alone the smaller ones. As the MPCB did not have any enforcement authority, its actions were confined to sending show cause notices to the hospitals.
Things came to such a pass by 2005 that some NGOs working in the field of health had to intervene and they filed public interest litigation in Mumbai High Court highlighting the pathetic condition prevailing in the state in the area of bio-medical waste disposal, causing danger to health and environment. The case is still on.