Soon after the State Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray reiterated his pledge to make the state free of all single-use plastic by Maharashtra Divas (on May 1), BMC got into action and started fining hawkers and users for the using the banned product. In This drive for the first time the civic body even seized plastic from customers as well. However, they have not been penalised so far.
Through the first drive that was carried in the city, BMC officials had managed to seize a whopping 1,028 kg of the banned material. Not just this they even collected INR 3.75 lakh as penalty amount from 4,081 hawkers, restaurants, shops and other establishments.
Over the weekend, BMC officials organised a visit to major markets along with areas around railway stations and hawking areas like Dadar, to raise awareness and conduct inspections.
Maharashtra government had earlier imposed a ban on the use of disposable plastic in March 2018. This included plastic bags, cups, spoons, plates and tiffin containers, among others. After which. the government provided the users, retailers and manufacturers three months to get rid of such items, after which a ban came into effect, June 23 onwards.
The ban, which imposes a fine between ₹5,000 and ₹25,000, was suggested by Environment Minister, Aaditya Thackeray. However, after about a year, the initiative against single-use plastic lost momentum and ever since it has been freely available in the market.
By January 2020, a year and a half after the plastic ban was imposed, the anti-plastic squad of BMC had collected 81,793 kilos of plastic. During the tenure, BMC had managed to collect penalty worth ₹4.41 crore for illegally stockpiling plastic.
Share
Tweet
