Factual Status of Bio-Medical Waste Management in Kota, Rajasthan, India
Hospitals including all types of health care centers generate a lot of wastes per day which needs to be segregated, collected and transported to the treatment and disposal site according to the norms prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India. After reading about mismanagement of bio-medical waste in local newspapers of Kota city, it was planned to perform an analytical study to find out the factual status. During study, the hospitals of Kota both government and private were visited and the status of bio-medical waste management was studied right from its generation to the final transportation from the hospitals by concerned agency nominated for this purpose. It was noticed that treatment and disposal facilities are not available at Kota and as per official records; the waste is transported to another city Alwar. During the study period, this fact could not be verified as there were no vehicles seen transporting bio-medical waste daily from Kota to Alwar and no monitoring system was seen in place for this purpose whether the operator has actually transported the waste to the treatment site or dumped it somewhere else with municipal solid waste. Other than this, many shortcomings in the system were also noticed during the study period. The segregation is not performed at the point of generation, the employees deployed for segregation, collection and transportation are neither sufficient in number nor well trained and do not have any safety equipment, transportation is not carried out properly and most critical point to note is that the city does not have any treatment plant of its own. There is a lack of awareness among all stakeholders regarding new Bio-Medical Waste Management (BMWM) Rules, 2016. The concerned authorities need to take an immediate action for proper management of bio-medical waste in Kota; otherwise it may create severe health hazards to human health, especially the young students studying in coaching institutes of Kota