Deccan Chronicle: Palakkad: Tuesday, January 23, 2018.
Giving a shot
in the arm for activists demanding decentralisation of the Indian Medical
Association’s bio-medical waste processing plant, a document obtained under the
Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that the facility does not have
dangerous and offensive trades (D&O) licence since March 2017. The
Pudussery Panchayat which has been issuing the D&O licence to the IMA plant
processing medical waste of than 6,000 private and 130 government hospitals
says the plant officials had failed to produce relevant documents from fire and
safety department for the licence.
RTI activist
and BJP district secretary Rajeev P. who received the document said the
environmental and political protesters were not for its closure but reducing
the amount of the waste including aborted fetuses and surgically removed cancerous
parts brought from all the private and government hospitals in Kerala to this
plant named IMAGE.
“It is
situated nearly 600 meters away from the water reservoir of Malampuzha Dam and
within its catchment area. With irregularities out in the open, the water and
soil from the water bodies in the region need to be tested, and an
environmental impact study was done,” he said. "That this plant functions
with two incinerators that burn waste in 900 degree Celsius did not have
mandatory licences points to the fact that units needed to be set up in each
district to process the medical waste.”