Anyone entering Jamshedpur via NH-33 from Ghatshila, which visitors from Bengal or Odisha do, will be horrified by the first look of the city touted as the state's showpiece.
Barely 30 metres from Dimna Chowk in Mango, high heaps of garbage, including biomedical waste, greet the visitor, the smell foul enough to make the uninitiated feel nauseous.
Soiled cotton swabs and bandages, empty medicine wrappers, used syringes and the like, are thown openly with food waste, plastic, thermocol and others at the almost 10-metre stretch on one flank of the NH-33.
As clouds of mosquitoes buzz over the filthy heaps and herds of stray cattle and dogs forage in them, newer threats such as vector-borne diseases and mishaps are added.
"Due to stray animals munching on garbage, drivers crawl on this stretch. We have no option but to block our noses with hankies to escape the stench," said Moushumi Chatterjee, a resident of Ashiana flats in Baliguma, who crosses the stretch daily to reach her Mango office.
Others have it far worse.
"Medical garbage is a serious health problem. Infections apart, the mosquito menace has increased in the area. The situation has come to such a pass that we light mosquito repellents inside our office all the time," Radhey Shyam Yadav, owner of a courier firm near Dimna Chowk, said.
An employee at a transport firm nearby added that on Tuesday evening, an SUV from Ghatshila narrowly missed colliding with a cow that had meandered on the road from the garbage dump. "Stray animals crowding near the garbage are a serious threat," said Dulal Dey, the computer operator at a transport firm at Dimna Chowk in Mango, barely 50 metres from the dump.
Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011, promulgated under Environment Protection Act of 1986, put the onus of biomedical waste management on municipal corporations and urban local bodies.
Norms say civic bodies must provide suitable common disposal or incineration sites while hospitals and others generating biomedical waste must take waste items to those designated spots.
But here, civic body Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC), which is supposed to do the needful, but has not, reminded Jharkhand Human Rights Conference (JHRC), a city-based NGO.
In 2012, JHRC filed a PIL at high court in 2012, highlighting the improper manner with which biomedical waste was being disposed in the state capital and elsewhere, which increases the risk of infection and pollution.
Manoj Mishra, JHRC chief patron, said Jharkhand High Court had asked the government to identify land to set up plants for proper disposal of biomedical waste. "But, it seems MNAC is not serious about it. If regular cleaning of the area isn't done, we will sit on a dharna in front of East Singhbhum DC Amitabh Kaushal to step up pressure," said Mishra.
MNAC special officer Jagadish Yadav admitted he was aware of the "garbage menace", but blamed nearby residential apartments, medical stores and small clinics for dumping garbage at the spot.
There are at least 10 clinics in Mango and scores of small-time medical stores with doctors' chambers. None has incinerators to dispose of biomedical waste that they generate.
Only corporate institutions such as Tata Main Hospital, Tinplate Hospital and Tata Motors Hospital have incinerators while state-run MGM hospital in Sakchi has outsourced garbage collection to an agency.
"We carry out cleaning work and even burn biomedical waste but heaps of filth accumulate in no time," MNAC special officer Yadav claimed. "But, nearby clinics and residents of flats keep dumping garbage. Still, we will clean the area at the earliest."
Remind MNAC of its waste management responsibilities at ttkhand@abpmail.com
