In order to enforce the state- wide ban on polyethene and polystyrene (thermocol) from Wednesday in the provisional State capital, the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) is once again preparing to step up the enforcement drive.
Attempting to make the drive successful this time, municipal commissioner of Dehradun, Vijay Kumar Jogdande held a meeting with the officers concerned and formed a team for the task. About eight teams have been formed with a sanitation inspector to conduct the drive in the city. The teams will seize the banned items and collect fine of Rs 5,000 each from citizens found violating the polythene ban.
Each sanitation officer has been directed to fine a minimum of 20 violators of the polythene ban per day from his assigned area. The responsibility for overseeing the drive has been assigned to the assistant engineer Rachna Payal.
Speaking about the matter, the Dehradun District Magistrate SA Murugesan said, “I stand against the use of the polythene and the ban on it should be strictly enforced. In addition to this, awareness at the user level is also important. If people replace polythene bags with cloth bags then at least thousands of polythene bags thrown in the garbage every day will be removed from the system.”
He added, “We have organised awareness campaigns in the past, and that is a regular process. We will change aspects of the strategy that have not been successful in the earlier drives.”