Licence deadline for hospitals

Just 320 of 4,574 hospitals have licence from Jharkhand pollution control board

DHANBAD: The Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) has asked all the hospitals to seek operational licence from it or face action after 15 days, according to a board notice issued on Tuesday.

The licence from the board is mandatory for private and government hospitals alike under the Environmental Protection Act 1986, failing which the hospital authorities may face a five-year imprisonment or Rs 1 lakh or both under the law, board officials said. The board can issue the licence to a hospital only when it is satisfied that the hospital has a standard biomedical waste disposal system in place.

There are in all 4, 574 hospitals and health sub-centres across 24 districts of the state.

However, only 320 have so far obtained the license and about 700 applications are under con- sideration, JSPCB officials said.

The board notice comes in the wake of the Jharkhand high court’s 2010 direction to the state government to get all private and government hospitals registered under the above act. The court had given this direction when the state government had failed to produce a list of hospitals to the court state, a board official said.

JSPCB member secretary Sanjay Kumar Suman said that the notice had been issued to all government, public sector, private hospitals , nursing homes, clinic and diagnostic centres across the state which receive over 1000 patients per month.

“This is last opportunity for those government/ private health centre who have not obtained Authorization from JSPCB under Bio Medical Waste (management and handling) Rules 1998 notified under Environment (Protection) Act 1986,” the notice said.

JSPCB secretary has also directed the hospitals and nursing homes to segregate biomedical waste within the hospital premises and strictly follow colour coding container for different waste category. It has been noticed that most of the hospitals /nursing homes store all bio medical waste in single container for disposal.

LICENCE FROM THE BOARD IS MANDATORY FOR PRIVATE, GOVT HOSPITALS ALIKE UNDER THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT 1986