With a view to cater most of the hospitals spread in entire Tamil Nadu, the State Government will set up nine biomedical waste treatment centres in different parts of the state to handle hospital wastages, besides separate centralized facilities to treat wastages of Government hospitals.

Within the next four months, four centralized bio-medical waste treatment centres will start functioning at Coimbatore, Chenneerkuppam near Sri perumputhur, Katpadi near Vellore and Sengipatti near Thanjavur.

Within the next few years, five similar facilities have been planned at Madurai, Cuddallore, Salem, Kanyakumari and Hosur to cover hospitals and clinics in those districts, according to sources with the Tamil Nadu State Pollution Control Board.

As part of the plan to have independent or centralized facilities to manage waste from Government run hospitals and clinics in the state, the Government plans to have centralized incinerator-autoclave waste management centres in various districts at Thirunelveli, Vellore, Chengalpet, Salem, Coimbatore, one each for Madurai and Theni, and for Tiruchi and Thanjavur.

Once functional, all the Government hospitals and health centres in these areas will only use these facilities, instead of banking on private run incinerators or treatment centres attached to private hospitals. The first of its kind centre is coming up at Chengalpet, and it would be ready within a few months, said sources.

It is to be noted that the state has commissioned its first of its kind centralized waste management facility at Thenmelpakkam near Chengalpet in April this year. Set up at an investment of over Rs.175 lakhs, the facility, functioning only partially, currently collect, treat and dispose about 15 tonnes of hazardous hospital waste collected from about 160 health centres and hospitals in and around Chennai.

Once fully functional, the centre would cater to more hospitals and clinics in the districts of Chennai, Thiruvalluvar, Chengalpet and Kancheepuram. The proposed Thenmalapakkam facility would cover rest of the hospitals in the same region and Chennai, said sources.