Gurugram warns medical facilities over biomedical waste disposal norms

Gurugram officials warn hospitals to properly dispose of bio-medical waste through licensed agencies, following complaints of improper disposal.

Gurugram:Gurugram civic authorities have warned registered medical facilities, including hospitals, to dispose of bio-medical waste (BMW) through designated external agencyunder the supervision of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB), Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) officials said on Thursday.

Officials said only one agency has been tasked with collecting the BMW from the district (HT)

The municipality, board and chief medical officer of Gurugram, along with Indian Medical Association (IMD) representatives, held an inter-departmental meeting last week after bio-medical remains were found at the corporation’s secondary waste disposal site in Beriwala Bagh, Sector 11, officials added.

A senior MCG official said the corporation received complaints from its sanitary staff of trolleys filled with mixed BMW and construction debris which were disposed of at the secondary site in Shanti Nagar in February.

“A challan of ₹10,000 was issued against a private clinic in Pataudi to warn healthcare practitioners to strictly follow disposal norms,” the senior municipality official said.

Under the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, the BMW segregated into different color-coded categories – yellow for human tissues, dressings, contaminated waste, red for plastic items like IV tubes, catheters, white for sharps such as needles and scalpels and blue glass and metallic implants – is transported to a Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facility (CBWTF) at Pali in Faridabad through trucks after door-to-door collection from registered facilities.

Yash Jaluka, additional commissioner of MCG said, “Mixing bio-medical waste with domestic waste can pose a serious threat to the well-being of the staff as it may contain used needles, scalpels and glass pieces, increasing the risk of HIV exposure. The hospital authorities failing to comply with disposal norms will face strict action.”

Jaluka added that the civic authorities are examining the CCTV footage from near the secondary site to identify the tractor owners who illegally dumped the BMW mixed with construction waste last month.

Officials said only one agency has been tasked with collecting the BMW from the district. “Under the Haryana’s clinical establishment act, only health facilities with over 50 beds need to register with the district licensing authority,” a senior health department official said, adding that a list of registered facilities in the district was made available to the MCG during the meeting.

A senior HSPCB official said the board is reviewing the existing BMW disposal norms by making it mandatory for even a single-bedded facility to adopt the regular agency channels. “The discussion is at an early stage, however, the issue is expected to be taken up at the government level,” the senior board official said, requesting anonymity.