Sensitise health sector on Biomedical Waste rules: Sisodia

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 7

Inaugurating the second state level workshop on implementation of Biomedical Waste Management Rules 2016, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today stressed the need for generating awareness among health service providers about the new provisions and rules about Biomedical Waste (BW).

“Apart from sensitising the health service providers, which include hospitals, nursing homes, clinics,etc, they must be awarded,” Sisodia underlined.

Failure to comply with the provisions of the rules will attract penal action as per the provisions of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, which includes imprisonment for a period of 5 years or a fine of Rs 1 lakh or both.

At the one-day workshop, organised by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), an Environmental Handbook authored by Dr. Siddartha Gautam and co-authored by Dr. B.M.S Reddy, Rajeev Sharma and Aastha Dhingra was also released by the Deputy Chief Minister who was accompanied by Minister of Environment Imran Hussain.

The Biomedical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules 1998 have been superseded by the Biomedical Waste Management Rules 2016 which came into force on March 28 last year.

The rules cover all persons who generate, collect, receive, store, transport, treat, dispose, or handle BW in any form, including hospitals, blood banks, ayush hospitals, clinical establishments, research or educational institutions, health camps, first-aid rooms of schools, forensic laboratories and research labs, irrespective of their size/ number of patients/ the quantity of BW generation. These are liable to apply and obtain authorisation from the DPCC.