By Basavaraj Itnaal, DH News Service, Bangalore: The IT capital is the only city in the country that employs qualified doctors, some of them specialists, to manage garbage. Apparently, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) is yet to wake up to the fact that there is a discipline in engineering called Environmental Engineering. For, Palike does not employ a single Environmental Engineer while it has to collect more than 3,500 tonnes of garbage every day, transport and dispose it at scientific landfills. Recently Chickpet MLA Dr D Hemachandra Sagar wrote to BBMP to deploy the doctors for the job they are trained for. Palike has 30 medical officers of health (MoH) in the old areas and 5 in the new zones. All the 35 MoHs are doctors, some of them are specialists in disciplines like thyroid surgery and cardiology. Eleven of the doctors were sent to Kolkata for a diploma in public health. BBMP's deputy health officer Dr M Shivakumar told Deccan Herald that despite repeated plea by the doctors, the civic body is yet to act. "Public health engineering is much different from public health care. The former involves collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste while the latter is concerned with epidemic control and administration of general medical services. Presently the doctors are made to do the job of a public health engineer. We have appealed to the Commissioner to correct the anamoly and he has responded positively,'' he said. The numbers In fact, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has a separate department of solid waste management headed by a chief engineer with 5 deputy chief engineers, 21 executive engineers, 77 assistant engineers, 106 sub engineers and 40 junior engineers apart from a head supervisor with 6 deputy head supervisors, 28 assistant head supervisors, 53 supervisors, 433 junior overseers and 1772 mukdams. All this staff looks after the work carried out by 27,717 labourers to collect about 8000 tones of garbage every day. On the other hand, BBMP has doctors who will track the door-door collection of waste, transportation by trucks and disposal at landfills. As a consequence, Palike has not been able to focus on health care services. Dr Shivakumar said that doctors need to implement various national health programmes on TB, Malaria control, Leprosy, HIV, family welfare, school health and blindness control. The MoHs job typically includes prevention of food adulteration, issue of trade licences, prevention of communicable diseases, hospital administration, maternity and child care services and control of places of public amusement. Even the State Integrated Health Policy 2001 envisages two streams of health cadre; one for medical care and another for public health. The policy says that the public health cadre should have programme management and implementation skills and the medical care stream should focus on hospital administration. Interestingly, the Palike has no single impatient facility for general medicine. BBMP only runs maternity homes without a pediatric ward. Palike sources said that once the child is delivered, BBMP hospitals have nothing to offer in terms of post natal care. Palike Special Commissioner Jayaram Raje Urs assured that the issue would be taken up soon and that the Commissioner was of the opinion that the system must be streamlined. "Palike would opt options like outsourcing monitoring of garbage management, transferring the responsibility to engineering department and also to recruit environmental engineers,'' he said. Urs felt that there was no reason why doctors should be managing garbage.