This is despite the established fact that undisposed-of hospital waste offers a fertile breeding ground to the microbes of ailments like HIV, hepatitis B, leptospira (a brain infection) and several skin and body allergies.

If the authorities can be accused of inertia, the private hospitals 815-odd of them are registered with civic body cannot shake off the responsibility either.

Though experts on preventive and social medicine say that a large number of doctors are practically ignorant about the health hazards of clinical waste, it is hard to believe that the authoritiescannot bring the private doctors to behave and dispose of their clinical waste safely.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) did try this last year, but has failed. It worked out a system to have all the clinical waste picked by its staff and take it to its incinerator though rickety one at Jamalpur.Of course, this service was offered at a fee, fixed per kilo of waste. But the doctors balked at paying the fee they found exorbitant. The fee was slashed, allegedly under pressure from the doctor's lobby, leaving it for the people to pay a much higher price.

Worse, only 30-odd of the 815 or so of private hospitals and nursing homes in the city have so far joined the civic system. What do the rest of them do? Simply dump their infectious waste into the AMC's garbage-bins.

The AMC's incinerator is an outdated diesel-run machine, which often breaks down. A proposal to buy two new incinerators is hanging fire for more than a year. Jayantilal Makwana, director, solid waste, said the AMC incinerator canburn some 700 kg of waste daily. Says Dr Rajesh Mehta, a professor of preventive and social medicine, at the N H L Municipal Medical College, ``The waste is not segregated as it should be.'' According to the guidelines laid down by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), hospital waste is to be segregated into various categories like human body waste, plastic waste and metal waste.

Besides, the fumes generated by the incinerator should also be below a certain limit. However, guidelines make little sense in a State where hardly a dozen hospitals have their incinerators, let alone the pollution-control norms.

But the State government says it is concerned about the issue.Health and Family Welfare Minister Ashok Bhatt said the government would buy seven incinerators during 1998-99, for which Rs 49 lakh had been earmarked.Bhatt also said talks were on with some plastic manufacturers to turn plastic clinical waste into granules, to be re-used. But the previous government had said the same thing in early1997.

A recent Supreme Court ruling had directed Delhi Government to install incinerators in all hospitals and nursing homes having over 50 beds.Besides, Union Ministry of Forest and Environment framed rules this July about hospital waste management.

But the rules are yet to be implemented as the State government has still not decided on which department will enforce them.