Chandigarh, August 6
Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh, has been given the nod to upgrade its incinerator. A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting here today. The administration has asked the hospital authorities to submit afresh the proposal to upgrade the incinerator.
The meeting was attended, among others, by the finance secretary, Chandigarh, the member secretary, Chandigarh Pollution Committee, and the Deputy Medical Superintendent, GMCH.
Earlier, the proposal to set up the new incinerator at the hospital was rejected by the administration. It cited provisions of the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998, which said the installation of individual incinerator by a hospital should be discouraged. The hospital authorities were told that the Central Pollution Control Board allows incinerators at common biomedical waste treatment facility only.
All apprehensions and misgivings of the pollution committee were addressed and the GMCH would submit its fresh proposals within the next couple of days for upgrading the incinerator to treat the biomedical waste with a capacity of 200 kg per hour, said the hospital authorities.
In fact, the GMCH was not setting up any new incinerator, said the authorities. It just needed to increase its capacity as it was able to treat hardly 10 kg of waste per hour. As the hospital with a capacity of 600 beds produce around 250 kg of waste every day, it was not possible to treat the waste in this plant and the incinerator at the Sector 16 hospital was being used to treat the remaining waste. Hence there was need to upgrade the plant, added the authorities.