Daily Court Digest: Majorenvironment orders (October 8, 2020)
Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court,
the high courts and the National Green Tribunal.
Bio-medical waste management
An oversight committee headed by Justice SVS Rathore filed a report before the National
Green Tribunal (NGT) on non-compliance of the provisions of Bio-Medical Waste
Management Rules, 2016 (BMW Rules, 2016) by Uttar Pradesh.
The report was in compliance with the NGT order passed in Original Application No.
710 / 2017 in the matter of Shailesh Singh Vs Sheela Hospital and Trauma Centre &
Others.
Why I quit the corporate world to start teaching mud house construction
The committee, in its report, said there was an elaborate track and trace system of bio-
medical waste management prescribed in the BMW Rules, 2016, in which all coloured
bags are bar-coded. The movement of trucks is tracked through a global positioning
system (GPS).
However, barring a small pilot in Lucknow, none of the operators were using the bar-
coding system. This put a big question mark on the reliability of the data generated, it
said.
Large infrastructural gaps in healthcare facilities (HCF) were also noticed, due to which
many were not complying with BMW Rules. Around 452 of 530 HCFs with an operating
capacity of more than 100 beds did not have sewage treatment plants (STP) / effluent
treatment plants (ETP).
Even in government facilities, out of 1,027 HCFs comprising district hospitals and
community health centrers (CHC), 564 did not have collection sheds where biomedical
waste could be collected.
Only 628 primary health centers (PHC) out of 3,620 had deep burial pits.
The construction of ETPs in district hospitals was very slow and only 40 district hospitals
were taken up for ETP construction in 2020, it added. Nearly 2,483 HCFs were
notauthorised under BMW Rules. Of these, 441 HCFs belong to the government.
An important gap was noticed in the disposal of radioactive materials. The health
department must develop standard protocols and build capacity for all the stakeholders,
the report said.
The report stressed on capacity building among stakeholders. Pollution in hospitals was a
constant challenge and the nature and extent of infections keep on varying, the latest
being COVID-19.
The report recommended that capacity building workshops be organised on a continuous
basis for all stakeholders — doctors, paramedics, other hospital staff, laboratory staff,
blood bank staff, private practitioners, nursing homes and the HCFs.
Mining in and around Jaisamand lake
The NGT October 6 took up the application filed by Nanga Ram Dangi on illegal mining
in the area around Jaisamand lake, Rajasthan’s Udaipur district.
The application, filed in 2014, alleged illegal mining in eight villages in the catchment
area of the lake.
The tribunal considered the matter vide order September 19, 2018, and directed the
Directorate of Mining and Geology to ensure that all illegal mining activities in the
catchment area of the lake were closed.
It asked the directorate to submit a compliance report to the tribunal. The matter was,
thereafter, considered in light of the status reports filed from time to time.
The NGT took up the matter in continuation of the earlier proceedings and also looked at
the action taken report September 30, 2020, filed by the Inspector-General Police,
Udaipur. The report stated that regular touring was being done in the area using drones.
NGT termed the action taken report as inadequate and lacking in meaningful enforcement
of law. The Bench of Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and SP Wangdi directed the Chief
Secretary, Rajasthan, to consider appropriate course of action in light of various orders
passed by the tribunal and circulate appropriate guidelines at grass-root level, particularly
the district magistrates and superintendents of police.
