In a comparative evaluation made by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) regarding implementation of the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016, Himachal Pradesh has been ranked as the top performing state in the country along with UTs like Chandigarh, Delhi, Puducherry and state like West Bengal.
All these States and UTs have a total score of 21 out of 24 according to a report submitted by the CPCB before the National Green Tribunal. The CPCB had identified 12 key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess states with respect to effectiveness in monitoring, ensuring compliance and implementation of the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016, said an official spokesman.
Pursuant to the notification of new Regulation in the year 2016, the Himachal State Board has taken several initiatives to sensitize the stakeholder institutions which mainly are Allopathic, Ayurvedic and Veterinary hospitals or institutions to achieve the better compliance of rules. In this regard, more than 100 trainings and workshops were organized by the State Board at district and local level to bring in all institutions under regulatory ambit of the rules, he said.
The spokesman said that the state has inventory of 8853 health care institutions, which falls under the ambit of the rules and out of which approximately 77 percent of the institutions have been authorized by the State Board.
Despite COVID pandemic, the State Regulatory agency has put in best efforts to enforce the regulatory measures for management of bio-medical waste and granted authorization to about 4000 health care institutions, which is almost 58 percent of the total authorization granted so far, he said.
Elaborating, the spokesman said that there are 4125 allopathic institutions in the state out of which 3147 institutions (about 76 %) have been authorized by the State Board so far. Ayurvedic institutions have the highest level of compliance (about 91 percent), wherein, 1112 institutions have been authorized against the inventory of 1228 institutions. Besides, the compliance level of Veterinary institutions is about 72 percent, wherein, 2443 institutions possess authorization from the State Regulatory agency against the total inventory of 3404 institutions.
In addition to this, there are 96 industrial units which also fall under the ambit of the rules ibid and 91 units have been authorized so far, he said.
There are two Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBWTFs) operating in the state with cumulative treatment and disposal capacity of 9.2 MT per day, of which incineration capacity is 2.4 MT per day. Approximately, 90 percent of the biomedical waste is collected and disposed-off by the two CBWTFs and remaining 10 percent through captive disposal facilities of the respective health care institutions situated in remote or far flung areas of the state.
To ensure the operational compliance of these CBWTFs, online continuous emission monitoring systems have been installed, which transmit its emissions monitoring data on real time basis with the server of the State/Central regulatory agencies. Besides, segregation, pre-treatment, on-site storage, barcoding and treatment of liquid waste etc. is also mandatory for all health care facilities, he said.
Status review of the Biomedical Waste Management in the state is being done at the level of the Chief Secretary from time to time.
These coordinated efforts have resulted into better implementation of the rules in the state, the spokesman added.
