Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has outsourced the responsibility of bio-medical waste collection from homes of Covid-19 positive patients, suspects or contacts to a private agency. The agency that is already engaged in collection of bio-medical waste from the Covid-19 designate hospitals will be expanding their reach to these households, a KMC health department official said.
According to norms, workers of Greentech Environ Management will collect bio-medical waste in a double-layered yellow bag (to be provided by the KMC health department) and transport them to the bio-medical waste treatment facility outside the city for disposal. Earlier, KMC solid waste management department workers used to collect bio-medical waste from quarantined homes.
The private agency has 15 vehicles for collection of bio-medical waste from Covid-designate hospitals, quarantine centres and households. While KMC will provide masks and PPEs to the private agency, the latter will have to realize service charges from the households as per the rate fixed by the KMC health department. Apart from collecting waste, the agency has also been asked to collect masks, gloves and other accessories that are being disposed of after use.
Initially, the civic health department has handed over a list of around 1,950 in the city where the PPE-clad workers will visit every day and collect bio-medical waste. “We have handed over a preliminary list of number households where workers from the private agency will visit and collect such waste. We will update the list every day,” the KMC official said.
According to a source in the KMC health department, the decision to handover the task was taken following a spurt in number of Covid-19 positive patients from city’s high-rises, housing complexes and apartment buildings. It was getting difficult for our workers to collect waste from so many households,” said a civic official. Since the affected homes are spread across the city, KMC was finding it difficult to reach out to all homes. “From Cossipore in Ward 1 to a housing complex in Joka in Ward 144, the private agency needs to collect bio-medical waste from all over the city,” said a KMC health department source.
Source:Times of India
