On Sunday morning, a resident of JP Nagar in Bengaluru had gone near the Alahalli lake to inspect a plot of land he owns. But what he did not anticipate was to find biomedical waste dumped near the lake.
According to Anand Yadwad, Managing Trustee of Alahalli Lake and Neighbourhood Development Trust, the biomedical waste including syringes, blood and urine samples were stuffed into 10 rice rags and dumped at a secluded spot.
While finding garbage dumped on the lake was a regular sight for the residents until a months ago, when the trust took over the maintenance of the lake, this was the first instance where the residents found biomedical waste dumped near the lake.
Speaking to The News Minute, Anand Yadwad said that they found prescriptions in the bags.
"The prescriptions are from a number of places across the city including Frazer town, Kamalanagar and Tumakuru. Majority of them are from Frazer town. Since the syringes bear batch numbers on them, it will not be difficult to trace to whom it was sold," Anand said.
Alahalli Lake and Neighbourhood Development Trust filed a complaint with BBMP on Monday, after which, the civic body has now cleared the waste.
However, when The Times of India - which first reported the story - reached out to an official with the health department, he maintained that this was an isolated incident.
“This is not a case of trash being dumped systematically. We've received a complaint, and will get the lake cleaned. Someone must have put the trash here at night. Otherwise, we would have caught and fined the culprits. It's not a special case," the officer was quoted as saying.
Earlier in April last year, the residents of HAL 2nd stage had found that Dr Rama's Test Tube Baby Centre located in the neighbourhood was dumping medical waste on the roads.