Talking to Express Newsline, Verma, who was in city to chair a session on the concluding day of national conference on Bio-medical Waste here on Sunday, said though the directorate had already initiated steps to check the hazards, much, however, needed to be done.

According to him, more than 50,000 kgs of medical waste was generated daily from the AFMS-run hospitals at all the seven defence commands in the country, which at any given point of time had more than 40,000 indoor patients. ``We are trying our best to check the risks at local levels, yet are going to have full-fledged units equipped with incinerators at each of the command hospitals in another couple of months and later at other bigger hospitals'', he said.

The Directorate General AFMS, he said, was currently surveying all aspects pertaining to medical waste in the hospitals and had recently floated a pilot project, with the help of World Health Organisation, at its Command Hospital at Mangalore.

Admitting there was not much awareness among the doctors about scientific ways of disposing medical waste, he said, AFMS would conduct a two-day workshop for its doctors at Mangalore next month for the purpose.

The directorate was also considering to adopt methodology of micro-wave and hydro-pulping to disinfect the medical wastes, he said, adding that the DG-AFMS had also sought additional fund for the purpose.

Meanwhile, in Sunday's session of the conference, jointly organised by the Baroda Management Association (BMA) in association with the United States Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP), experts from different parts of the country and abroad highlighted the need to spread the awareness about medical waste among public as well as professionals in the wake of July 28, 1998 notification of the Government of India in the context.

State Environment principal secretary P Basu in his valedictory speech said the government was keen to help all the non-governmental agencies and the professional in the context. He hoped the scientific disposal of medical waste also became a part of syllabus for medical and para-medical students. Vadodara Municipal Corporation incharge in the field B Trapasia claimed that VMC had since the past six years been excellently disposing its medical waste.

The speakers in the technical sessions concluded that it was time professionals working in the field converted their weaknesses into strengths. Though the legislation was in place and there was fair enough awareness and willingness to execute the norms, the ``buck-passing'' among government agencies was on, they claimed. The speakers also alleged that some agencies involved in the process lacked conviction. They mooted common-treatment facilities in the context for private and government hospitals and dispensaries.

Besides, conference chairman Dr S B Saxena, AVM Verma, US-AEP experts like Jane Rubinstein, Dr Hala Azzam and Suneel Parasnis also spoke. The BMA chief executive R Jayaram and organising secretary Dr J R Kamath detailed the gathering about the BMA activities and proposed the vote of thanks.