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Journalism of Courage
PUNE, Nov 11: An incinerator is still a distant dream for the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Cantonment General Hospital. Nearly a year after the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) approved a proposal for its purchase from a Bangalore-based company and forwarded the proposal to the Southern Command Headquarters, there has been little response from the latter.
The lack of response from the Southern Command headquarters could prove to be a major set-back for the hospital which has been making attempts to improve its functioning. Moreover, a government gazette has directed all hospitals in the country to install incinerators for the disposal of bio-medical waste before the year 2002 for areas with a population less than 30 lakh and December 1999 for areas with a population above 30 lakh.
Elected members of the Cantonment are particularly miffed with the lack of response from the headquarters, especially since they had devoted more than three weeks for the final approval. It may be mentioned here that the purchase of an incinerator had then snowballed into a major controversy with the two bidders trading charges against each other. The city-based Thermax Ltd and the Bangalore-based Diffusion Technologies were bidding for the sale of incinerators.
The officials of Thermax had then alleged that their rivals had produced certificates from various Pollution Control Boards before the gazette of 1998 and accused the Bangalore-based company of misleading the cantonment board on this count. Interestingly, both the companies were bidders at the Pune Municipal Corporation, Khadki Cantonment Board and Dehu Road Cantonment Board and almost all the civic bodies opted for the Bangalore-based company. The results of the Thermax installed at Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital were not found to be very encouraging by the cantonment officials who had conducted site visits. Former vice president Shrikant Mantri was particularly upset by the apathy shown by the officials.
"We had taken so many pains over this proposal and spent almost three weeks for approving of this company and now the proposal is gathering dust", he said.
