Cuttack, March 4: Orissa High Court today directed the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) to submit a report on the disposal of bio-medical wastes generated from the hospitals and nursing homes in the city.

BMC’s health officer has to conduct an inspection of all the 136 hospitals and nursing homes in Bhubaneswar and file the report when the case is taken up for the next hearing on March 25, ordered the two-judge bench of Justice Laxmikanta Mohapatra and Justice Indrajeet Mohanty.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Siba Narayan Panda, a member of the High Court Bar, seeking judicial intervention for proper solid waste management in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

“The bench further asked the advocate committee including Ajay Mohanty and Pravat Ranjan Dash to make a field visit and submit a report on sanitation facilities in all the 377 slum areas in the BMC area,” petitioner counsel D.K. Mohapatra said.

The order was issued on the basis of the copy of annual return in regard to solid waste management filed before the statutory authority by BMC that was submitted by the health officer today.

Earlier, the court had, on January 21, issued directions to the BMC health officer to appear in person on March 4 and explain the status of sanitation facilities in the slums identified by the civic body and disposal of biomedical waste generated from the hospitals. Though the health officer appeared in person, he failed to give a satisfactory reply to the court.