Karnataka: More Than 77 Per Cent X-Ray Centres Operating Without Radiation Safety Licenses

More than 20,000 x-ray centres exist across Karnataka, ranging from government to private health institutes, but only about 4,500 of them have licenses from the Atomic Energy Regulation Board (AERB), The New Indian Express has reported.

The mandate of AERB - through registration, site approval and licensing in such facilities- is to ensure that any usage of ionising radiation and nuclear energy doesn’t cause any risk to health and environment.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between Karnataka and AERB on Saturday (22 December) to set up a Directorate of Radiation Safety (DRS) in order to facilitate governing of radiation safety.

Setting up of DRS became mandatory because a Supreme Court judgement mandated formation of such facilities in each of the state to support AERB in matters of radiation safety.

“In our state, we have no licensing authority for imaging centres of any kind. The only licensing authority is in Mumbai, which is the AERB. Only 4,500 are registered with them. The remaining 15,500 are unlicensed, which is 77 per cent. So we have signed an MoU with AERB to have a radiation safety division in Karnataka. The office will be operational in one-and-a-half months.” state nodal officer for radiation safety Dr Swatantra Banakar was quoted in the report as saying.

Adherence of nursing homes, clinics and diagnostic centres with the norms of AERB as well as their licenses will be checked by the radiation safety officers once the division is operational.