JAJARKOT: The District Public Health Office (DPHO) here has set the date expired medicines on fire causing an environmental menace.

The medicines were supposed to be sent to the health institutes in the rural villages, but were stockpiled instead at the district headquarters and neglected for too long.

DPHO Store Keeper Lam Bahadur Khadka shared that the medicines were set on fire on Thursday night without prior information to anyone within the hospital's premises in coordination between the Regional Medical Store, Surkhet and the DPHO, Jajarkot.

Khadka added that the disposing of medicines within the medical institute's premises was carried out as it would have been costly to send it to the Department of Drug Administration (DDA) in Kathmandu. It is illegal to burn medicines in hospital or local health institutes.

The DPHO destroyed medicines worth more than one million rupees overnight causing a nuisance to the patients, staff and the locals living in the surrounding localities.