Himachal Pradesh has been adjudged the top performing state along with Chandigarh, Delhi, Puducherry and West Bengal in a comparative evaluation made by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) regarding the implementation of the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016.

These states/UTs have a total score of 21 out of 24 according to a report submitted by the CPCB before the National Green Tribunal.

The CPCB identified 12 key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess states with respect to effectiveness in monitoring, ensuring compliance and implementation of the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016.

Pursuant to the notification of new regulation in 2016, the state board had taken several initiatives to sensitize the stakeholder institutions which are allopathic, ayurvedic and veterinary hospitals/institutions to achieve the better compliance of rules.

More than 100 trainings and workshops were organised at the state, district and local levels to bring in all institutions under regulatory ambit of the rules.

Despite the Covid pandemic, the state regulatory agency put in the best efforts to enforce the measures for management of bio-medical waste and granted the authorisation to about 4,000 healthcare institutions, which is almost 58 per cent of the total authorisation granted so far.