Karnataka State Pollution Control Board [KSPCB] has found that hospitals in several districts of the state have not put in place safe waste management systems. The main reasons appear to be lack of infrastructure and communication gap. Recent inspections by the Central Pollution Control Board [CPCB] officials have brought to light unsafe and unhygienic waste management procedures followed by the district hospitals in the state. An inspection squad from the KSPCB has now passed instructions to the heads of hospitals and the PHCs [primary health centres] that strict action will be taken against the violating hospitals.

Upendra Tripathy, chairman of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board told Pharmabiz.com that enforcement of biomedical waste rules is lax mainly in backward districts like Gulbarga, Chitradurga, Bidar and Raichur.

Biomedical waste generated from the 25 districts of Karnataka excluding Bangalore and Dakshina Kannada is around 15,000 tonnes. According to Tripathy, none of the big hospitals including the OPEC-funded Rajiv Gandhi Super Specialty Hospital in Raichur and 1,676 primary health centres in Karnataka are complying with the norms of bio-medical waste management. As per the laws, the environment waste like disposable surgical material, biological waste such as body parts, fluids, paper and plastic material have to be carefully segregated and incinerated, autoclaved or land filled, depending on its nature.

Hospitals have been given an extended deadline upto June 2002 for putting in place a waste management system. The total investment for bio-medical waste management system to be in place will take around Rs. 30 crore at the major hospitals in the 25 districts and the PHCs will have to also use the facility at the major hospitals to dispose off the waste. Apparently nobody wanted to take the responsibility of the common incinerator facility at any of the districts as it is a considered a dead investment in the districts of Karnataka unlike Bangalore and Mangalore city, informed Tripathy.