33 HOSPITALS FOUND IGNORING NORMS FOR WASTE DISPOSAL
PATIALA: Government-run Guru Nanak Dev Hospital and Medical College, Amritsar and Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, are among 33 hospitals in the state that violate pollution control norms, Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has found.
The PPCB conducted raids at 125 hospitals — the state has 10,000 hospitals — over three days and has released the results.
The raids were primarily meant to check if bio-medical waste was being disposed of properly.
In cases of Amritsar and Faridkot, hospitals are equipped to deal with the waste, but the staff were not following norms.
Civil hospitals of Patti (Tarn Taran), Mansa, Muktsar and Khanna are other government hospitals that were running foul of the law on disposal of bio-medical waste. Eleven private hospitals in Ludhiana were among those found flouting the norms.
PPCB chairman KS Pannu said that board would follow the policy of zero tolerance with regard to bio-medical waste as it is dangerous and any negligence in its disposal led to the spread of deadly diseases.
“PPCB engineers have been directed to keep a constant watch on the hospitals for ensuring proper disposal of bio-medical waste,” he said, adding that for the recent inspections, teams had been formed under environment engineers.
“The PPCB has already given detailed guidelines to the hospitals for handling and management of bio-medical waste which is collected by specialised agencies authorised by the Board. These agencies collect about 14 tonnes of bio-medical waste with vehicles fitted with centrallycontrolled GPS systems.” CHANDIGARH: He is a man with many epithets in Punjab politics. Aam Aadmi Party’s Sukhpal Khaira, the state’s new leader of opposition, is known as a ‘oneman demolition squad’, a ‘firebrand’, and even a ‘misguided missile’, as his attacks on the enemy camp can claim a casualty or two even within his own party.
The just-concluded budget session of the assembly was a trailer for the AAP that it needs to get its house in order as the main opposition party. It has not only to contend with the Congress that enjoys a brute majority and can literally flex its muscles if the need arises — AAP legislators were physically lifted out of the assembly by marshals in the last session — but also the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that would lap up every opportunity to turn the tables on both the government and the AAP that has relegated it to the third slot after it ruled the state for two back-to-back terms.
Khaira’s appointment is good news for the AAP that is battling a credibility and leadership crisis in the state after losing the state polls. With an “absentee” state chief in Bhagwant Mann as state president, who also has the penchant for making headlines for the wrong reasons, the party needs a leader to launch no-holdsbarred offensives against both Congress and the SAD-BJP.
It is Khaira’s courage to take on the might of the government that has won him the crown. With old scores to settle with the Congress, especially with power minister Rana Gurjit Singh whom he sees as the reason for his alienation by Capt Amarinder Singh’s camp, Khaira can do what he does best — blow the lid off major scandals through access to government files and officialdom.
Against SAD president Sukhbir Badal and his brother-in-law Bikram Majithia, he has filed many cases and they too had unleashed state force on him when in power by dragging his name in a drug scandal. But no corruption charge has come to stick on him. Also, adversity can make strange friends, and a thaw in their ties is already visible.
The media-savvy leader, who takes the crown for holding a large number of press conferences to make sensational disclosures or issuing statements, will now have constitutional sanctity. He can be the crusader that the AAP needs.
His over-activism can keep both rival parties on their toes while helping the AAP find its feet in the assembly. He can finally take them on as the face of the AAP and not a leader caught in a battle of one-upmanship with the high command’s choice — as was the case between Khaira and his predecessor HS Phoolka.
Resurrected after being left out in the cold first in the Congress and then in the AAP, Khaira will have to fight his own demons, though. His biggest challenge will be to emerge as a team leader. Will he be able to tame his love for publicity, both on the ground and on social media? Remember, not everything is news.