The Hindu 14.04.2013
Municipal staff try to collect medical waste
Villagers suspicious of the motives of municipal officials and staff.
A team of health officials and staff of Anakapalle
Municipality came to the plot of land very near Achayyapeta village on
Saturday morning and started collecting medical waste among the garbage
that was dumped by the municipality on March 22.
However,
the villagers, suspecting that the municipality was planning to do
something at the place, objected to the arrival of the municipal
officials and staff at the site which was under dispute, and an interim
stay on dumping of garbage from Anakapalle was in force. The villagers
said the act of municipality would amount to contempt of court.
Rejoinder
Incidentally, the Anakapalle Municipality acted a day after
The Hindu
carried a report that children of the village were playing with the used
syringes, needles and other medical waste found among the garbage.
In
a rejoinder sent on Friday, the Municipal Commissioner claimed that
there was no possibility of children picking up the used syringes, etc.
from the garbage since medical waste was not dumped by hospitals and
nursing homes in municipal sanitary vehicles.
The
villagers said that the municipal staff that came to the village
informed them that they were sent by the Municipal Commissioner to
remove the medical waste. The villagers then called the media
representatives from Anakapalle. Health Inspector P. Nageswara Rao and
Sanitary Inspector B. Venkata Rama Rao were also present. The villagers
also collected the names of the employees. Later the municipal staff,
along with a vehicle that they brought, left the village.
General
secretary of AP Vyavasaya Vrittidarula Union P.S. Ajay Kumar said the
Municipal Commissioner sent his staff to remove the medical waste after
the report appeared in
The Hindu
.
The municipality was violating all norms, including the High Court orders, he said and demanded immediate action.
CPI(M) leader Balakrishna alleged that the Commissioner was repeating mistakes using his staff as scapegoats.
Later
when reporters of Anakapalle contacted him, Municipal Commissioner of
Anakapalle S. Muralidhara Rao said that he had sent his staff to
Achayyapeta at the instructions of the Collector to remove the medical
waste from the garbage.
On Friday, Mr. Muralidhara
Rao in a rejoinder said that after the municipality told the hospitals,
nursing homes, clinics, labs to deal their hospital waste separately as
per the Solid Waste Management Rules 2000 they were using the services
of Maridi agency.
He claimed that the school children of Achayyapeta were not playing with syringes.
The
Commissioner also said that the land for the proposed compost yard was a
konda poramboke and not an agricultural land and that no notified
ayacut depending on the streams from the nearby hillocks existed.
