Chennai: The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered the Kerala government to clear biomedical waste illegally dumped in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu within three days. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has also written to its Kerala counterpart, demanding action against the hospitals responsible for dumping.
Recently, hazardous medical waste from the Thiruvananthapuram Regional Cancer Centre in Kerala was found dumped in the Kodaganallur and Nadukkallur areas of Tirunelveli. The Tamil Nadu police have registered a case and are investigating the matter. Political parties have strongly condemned the dumping of Kerala’s medical waste in Tamil Nadu.
During a hearing on a related case in the NGT’s Chennai bench, the Tamil Nadu government brought the biomedical waste issue to the tribunal's attention.
The tribunal’s judicial member, Pushpa Sathyanarayan, and expert member, Sathyagopal, expressed strong disapproval of the dumping of Kerala’s medical waste in Tamil Nadu, questioning why Kerala had granted licenses to hospitals without ensuring proper facilities for the disposal of medical waste.
The NGT has directed the Kerala government to take responsibility for clearing the medical waste dumped in Tirunelveli within three days and ordered that the waste be either returned to Kerala or handed over to a waste management agency in Tirunelveli.