A Haridwar Municipal Corporation team has raided several shops in Jwalapur and Peeth Bazar areas on Thursday during which a few of the traders, found flouting the ban on the use of plastic/ polythene, were slapped with fines and some quantity of the banned items was seized . The team headed by the civic body’s sanitary inspector Sunit Kumar claimed to have seized a large quantity of polythene and plastic items from shop-owners and the street vendors and they were made to cough up fines as per the rules.
Notably, the drive has come up in the aftermath of the order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which asked the authorities concerned to enforce the ban on the plastic products strictly. It is learnt that the drive is being launched now across the district.
The civic body officers said that teams have been formed at the administration level for the successful implementation of anti -polythene and anti-plastic drives in the district in conjunction with the district health authorities. Simultaneously with the drive, the local traders are being urged through various meetings to fall in line with the ban or else face consequences in the form of fines being slapped.
Panic gripped Peeth Bazar near BHEL on the day when the civic body team arrived and started to seize polythene bags from the vegetable and fruit vendors. A vegetable vendor Mayur Khan said that he had been made to shell out Rs 500 by way of fine. “This is a big sum for me, for I hardly earn Rs 200 through selling vegetables in a day,” he rued. He further said, “The customers are yet to develop the habit of bringing their bags to take the vegetables home. They thus demand things to be packed in such bags. They tend to go to other vendors if we refuse. It is a pity that the civic body is penalising us so hard instead of making the customers to develop the habit of bringing bags themselves,” he further lamented. Speaking to The Pioneer, the district magistrate Haridwar Deepak Rawat said, “The raids have been conducted in Peeth Bazar by the civic body team on my order. Such raids are launched twice a week.”
He further said that they had tried various means to make the people aware of the ill- effects of using the banned items. “Things not succeeding to the desired extent, we decided to launch such drives to seize such items and fine those found on the wrong side of the law. Besides, we are asking the wholesalers of polythene to desist from pumping the banned items in the district. They are too being made to face the consequences if they are found flouting the order in any way. Such drives would continue till the use is totally stopped. ” It is learnt from the civic body sources that the team has collected Rs 5,300 from the flouters of the ban on Thursday.
Notably, NGT order had come in July 2017 on a complaint filed by an environmentalist M C Mehta against pollution of the Ganga. He had held the Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board, the district administration and the municipal corporation responsible for the river's pollution in his petition. The tribunal had in its order had asked the civic bodies to inspect the ghats of the Ganga, vegetable markets and some other places to ensure that no plastic was used during the sale. Besides, it had asked the civic bodies to take the assistance of the police in the matter if required.