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Overnight ban on plastic “criminalized” us leaving 750 units closed with loan of Rs 3000 cr: Industry

Updated: May 27, 2016 11:22:29am
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Overnight ban on plastic “criminalized” us leaving 750 units closed with loan of Rs 3000 cr: Industry

Bengaluru, May 27 (KNN) Little knowledge of the officials about plastic made the plastic manufacturers “criminals” with around 750 units closed, 70,000 labours left unemployed and burgeoning loan of Rs 3000 crore. This is the view of most of the plastic manufacturers in the states where plastic manufacturing bans were imposed overnight.

The Karnataka State Plastic Association (KPSA) told KNN that plastic ban had been introduced in Karnataka since March 2011.

“They first gave the draft notification. But they made the draft notification official in one night and from the next day onwards they banned as many as 10 plastic items including no manufacturing, no selling, and no stocking of plastic bags, plate, cups, spoon and thin films. These five items affect our industry directly,” said Vijay Kumar, President, Karnataka State Plastic Association. 

After this, an NGO prepared a booklet mentioning the plastic items banned which are used by the common man and distributed it among the officials.

“Officials do not know anything about the plastic. As a result of this, a penalty was put on us was around Rs 2-5 lakhs. In one night they criminalized us like underworld and drug mafias,” he cried.

The entrepreneur highlighted that almost 750 industries got affected by this which are closed now.

“As many as 70, 000 people got unemployed after this in which women workers are more. Children of the workers are not able to go to school. Around 2,00,000 people are dependent on them. We are not able to repay  loan of around Rs. 3000 crores of the banks,” he added.

He pointed that the entrepreneurs has approached the Court after which the case got referred to the Green Bench.

“We have hearing on July 15th in Green Bench. We asked Government to give permission to clear the stock of around Rs. 300 crore by sending the material in states where plastic is not banned until or unless the matter is pending before the court,” said Kumar.

Due to all this hotel industry, bakeries, sweet shops, medical shops all are facing problems as it does not have any alternative, he added.

Not only in Karnataka, similar is the state of plastic manufacturers in Gujarat. The fate of more than 500 plastic-manufacturing units, which are mainly micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) is at risk and the municipal bodies in the state have sought blanket ban on manufacturing of plastic bags of below 50 microns in thickness.

Rajiv Raval, Past President, Gujarat State Plastic Manufacturers Association (GSPMA) told KNN, “The Central Government has issued a notification in March this year to ban manufacturing of plastic bags of below 50 micros thickness.

He said the municipalities of three cities –Vadodara, Rajkot and Surendra Nagar issued notifications in May banning the manufacturing, stocking, selling and use of plastic items of any thickness.

On May 1, the Rajkot Municipal Corporation, reportedly, issued a notification declaring that manufacturing, stocking, selling and use of plastic items of any thickness would be banned with immediate effect. Following the same footsteps, on May 8, the Vadodara commissioner issued a similar notification, in retrospective effect from May 1.

He further said, “Plastic bags are not harmful at all if disposed of properly. The problem arises due to non-awareness of dustbin usage. If somebody is putting food, sanitary napkins and diapers in poly bags then they are creating the problems not the plastic bags. If you use it in a proper manner by keeping disposing it in dustbin, there are NGOs who can collect it from each home and the society can get the money too.”

He said that the ban on plastic manufacturing would increase the usage of paper bags immensely which again is a big threat to the environment as it requires lots of trees to be cut.

After the notifications, approximately 100 units in both cities have stopped production, leading to concerns of unemployment for nearly 1,200 workers employed at these plants. (KNN Bureau)

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