Indian Medical Association Goes Ecofriendly (IMAGE) has admitted that its initial suspicion that the fire at its Common Biomedical Waste Treatment Facility (CBWTF) at Palakkad on January 16 emanated from the nearby forest area was wrong, as it lacked any evidence to confirm it.
The Forest department had rejected the association’s position that the fire started from the forest.
A report submitted by IMAGE secretary Dr. Sharafudheen K.P. before the Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal on February 15 claimed that the possibility that negligence on the part of the plant staff might have caused the fire was remote, as the association had taken care to avoid such incidents.
The tribunal had asked IMAGE on January 25 to file an independent report on the incident and recommend remedial measures to avoid such mishaps in the future.
Representatives of the facility pointed out that they could not be found fault with, if they suspected any mischief or sabotage behind the incident. IMAGE has business rivals in the field, and there are lobbies that want to diminish its public reputation as the most effective and useful CBWTF in the State, they said.
The authorities said that there were people who wanted to create an impression that the fire had started from the backlog of untreated waste on their premises.
IMAGE had come under criticism from the State Pollution Control Board after it opposed the government’s decision to permit Kerala Enviro Infrastructure Limited (KEIL) here to collect and process biomedical waste within 75 km from its CBWTF at Ambalamedu. KEIL was allowed to collect biomedical waste from Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta, and Idukki.
IMAGE wanted open competition between them and KEIL till adequate treatment facilities were set up covering the entire State. The board had said that waste collection and processing did not constitute an industry, and that unhealthy competition in the sector might adversely affect waste minimisation.
