Waste management

Sir,
This is in reference to the article “Inefficient Management of Bio Medical Waste” by Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat DE Nov 13, 2017 I appreciate the Excelsior management for giving good coverage to developmental and environment related columns from last few years. I would suggest more and more articles should be published on these issues as J&K is suffering a lot on these fronts.
Inefficient management of Bio Medical waste is not a problem in Kashmir based hospitals  only, but the Government hospitals in Jammu also faces a similar problem or even worst. Authorities are yet to establish Bio Medical waste treatment plants in our State. Even if there are some plants, they are not functional or well managed. Pollution Control Board and Municipal Corporations have  a big role fo play for enforcing rules governing Bio Medical waste management. But the problem is that these organisations are not even enforcing Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2016.The main violators of these rules are the municipal authorities themselves. It is mandatory under SWM Rules 2016 to segregate the waste a source and then only it can be lifted by municipal vehicles, but lifted by municipal vehicles, but not even at single place in J&K state, the mandatory source segregation of waste is undertaken. The officials of Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), Municipal Councils and smaller Municipal Committees are not at all sensitive towards waste management and majority of them do not know what Solid Waste Rules 2016 focus on ?
It is the duty of Government particularly Housing and Urban Development Department to devise a programme for capacity and awareness building on waste management for municipal staff and to make this possible technical institutions,NGOs, Universities should be involved to generate mass awareness about waste management which includes Bio Medical waste management as well.
Yours etc…
Sanjeev Kumar,
Trikuta Nagar,
Jammu