25 August,2010 08:44 AM IST | | Shashank Shekhar
Medical scrap treatment plant that exists on paper gets rent waiver and new land
Thousand square metres of land was allocated for a medical waste treatment facility. The company that won the bid, however, never raised the structure as necessary go ahead from the environment controllers did not come. Meanwhile the rent for the land mounted up to crores of rupees and the government allotted an alternative site for the facility.
OK, let's clear the air. Neither is any medical waste treatment facility coming up in the national capital anytime soon nor does the government realise its dues. Even though the company -- SMS Water Grace BMW (P) Ltd - is yet to pay up around Rs 2.5 crores, it has been provided with a piece of land in Nilothi to construct the same facility.
Though the Directorate of Health Services has been issuing repeated reminders to the proprietors of the Nagpur-based company yet it remains unexplained as to why and how the company that has been defaulting on the payments was provided an alternative land.
The proposed plant was meant to be a centralised medical waste treatment plant for which land was provided at Ghazipur in east Delhi in August 2006. The whole facility was to be constructed in six months. However, SMS Water Grace BMW (P) Ltd did not get the clearance from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).
The company had to pay Rs 4,32,000 as rent for the land but it defaulted and did not pay up leading to Rs 2.5 crore as dues against it for the land in Ghazipur.
Inexplicably, though, SMS Water Grace BMW (P) Ltd was allotted an alternative land site in Nilothi in west Delhi for the same rent by the Delhi government in November 2009.
The company also defaulted on payment of the rent for the land in Nilothi for which the rent payment was to commence after six months of the signing of the contract.
However, as per a signed letter of the Directorate of Health Services, the company is yet to pay dues for the month of May, June and July amounting to Rs 14.32 lakh.
Dr S Bhattacharjee, director health services DHS, did not comment on the issue but the notice having his initials mentions: "The undersigned order to SMS Water Grace BMW (P) Ltd to deposit a total amount of Rs 14.72 lakh (upto 31st July) inclusive of penalty at the rate Rs 2,000 per day...failing this Directorate will cancel your contract."
Stinking statistics
Delhi, which is the other leading mass producer of medical waste, has its own set of problems. Close to 8,600 kg of bio-medical waste is generated everyday. With more hospitals and nursing homes coming up in the Capital, waste generation is expected to touch 10,000 kg in the next few years. But, at present, there are only three over-loaded bio-medical waste treatment facilities in Delhi.
