The National Green Tribunal ban on plastic in Haridwar and Rishikesh towns with a penalty of `5,000 on anyone found violating the order will pose a challenge for the authorities designated to implement it. The NGT passed this order after receiving the report of its local commissioner Sharik Zaidi, who had inspected various sites in Haridwar and Rishikesh recently. NGT has instructed the district administration and Municipal Corporation of Haridwar (MCH) to implement the order.
Haridwar Mukhya Nagar Adhikari, Vipra Trivedi said that she cannot state anything specific before receiving a copy of the NGT order. She further added that after proper study of NGT order and its language, category of plastic and its specification, further planning will be made to implement the order effectively.
District Administration has already banned the use of plastic bags in the city area of the district. Sudhir Agarwal, a local cloth trader, said that the then District Magistrate Archana Shukla, in 1998 had banned plastic bags in the city for the first time. For this she had directed several drives for public awareness. Since then, no DM has attempted to prevent plastic use here, he added.
Municipal engineer Dinesh Sharma said that the waste has to be collected on daily basis and dumped and further disposed off as per the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000.
The State Government has already banned the use of plastic bags less than 40 microns in the district.
But due to lackadaisical approach of the nodal agency and district administration, the use of plastic has continued to thrive. If sources are to be believed more than a dozen plastic bag manufacturing units are operating across the district apart from units manufacturing disposable utensils and glass factories. Vegetable vendor Mani Singh welcomed the order stating that it would save his money as customers would bring their own cloth bags in stead of asking him for plastic bags.