The Hindu : Pollution poses threat to public health

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 08, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Pollution poses threat to public health

By Radhakrishnan Kuttoor

PATHANAMTHITTA, FEB. 7. An epidemic threat looms large over Central Travancore and Kuttanad owing to the negligence of the authorities concerned towards the dumping of hazardous hospital waste on the banks of the Pampa, besides the flow of human waste into the river from Sabarimala.

Solid waste from operation theatres, clinical laboratories and cytotoxic waste were found to have been dumped in a massive dumping yard on the banks of the Pampa in the very heart of Kozhencherry town.

The drainage system in the panchayat that carries the liquid waste from this dumping yard empties into the Pampa, near a well of the Kerala Water Authority's drinking water supply scheme in Kozhencherry.

Talking to The Hindu , many medical experts expressed deep concern over this pollution menace and the health threat it poses to lakhs of people residing in the Pampa river basin and the backwaters of Kuttanad.

Purushothama Bhatt, Deputy District Medical Officer, and J. Suseela Devi, Reproductive and Child Health Officer, told The Hindu that water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery, Hepatitis-A and `E' were common at many places situated downstream, after the Sabarimala pilgrim season.

The highly-polluted Pampa ultimately reaches the backwaters of Kuttanad and there were reports of many* families who come under the below poverty line category, using this polluted river water for domestic purposes.

Thomas P. Thomas, environmentalist and a Botany professor at the Kozhencherry St Thomas College, alleged, "this is nothing but human rights violation against hapless tribals and other poorer sections of society who depend on the river for their daily needs.''

Dr. Thomas alleged that the State Pollution Control Board that was supposed to monitor and enforce the pollution control rules was primarily responsible for this highly disastrous `pollution bomb' posing a threat to lakhs of people.

It was alleged that though many major hospitals had erected incinerators, many of them were in the practice of dumping solid wastes at various public dumping yards, reportedly as part of `cost-cutting' measures.

However, it is learnt that a majority of the hospitals in the State are yet to implement the Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, though the deadline for its implementation was December 31, 2003. Toxic smoke from the wastes in the garbage yards at all the towns on the banks of the Pampa is another major public health hazard.

The State Government had agreed before the High Court that the Rules would be implemented in all the five Government Medical Colleges and 12 district hospitals in the State by July 14, 2004.

However, the ground reality is that the pollution menace, because of this `irresponsible' dumping of hospital wastes in public, is likely to continue till the Government initiates stern measures.

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