[caption id="attachment_278136" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
A customer packing onions in a paper bag at the evening market in Signal village, Dimapur. (EM Images)[/caption]
Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Oct 19: The usage of non-woven plastic bags have shown an increase in and around Dimapur market area after the completion of one month and the checking exercise conducted by the Dimapur administration, since the ban came into effect in Dimapur on September 18.
According to one grocery seller at Supermarket area, he is not using any plastic bags nowadays. ‘For one plastic bag, why should I face trouble and pay fine?’ he maintained.
“Moreover our businesses will go down if we keep paying fines,” he said and added that it was better for them to obey the rules.
Another vegetable vendor at New Market area said that, “nowadays we don’t use plastic bags” and added that even the “customers get angry when we give goods in plastic bags”.
“Most of the shops do not use single-use plastics,” he said, and added that just a few shops use plastic bags from old stocks. Moreover, single-use plastic bag stocks are not available in the market, he said.
According to one of the wholesalers of non-woven carry bags, “Sale of these bags have reduced in my shop compared to earlier days since it is now available in most of the shops.”
He added that the price of non-woven carry bags differ in range and depends on the thickness of the material. Carry bags made of thinner material are INR 220 per kg and the thicker material is around INR 240 per kg at wholesale rate.
Street fast-food sellers dealing in items like noodles and dumplings use clear plastic pouch, which is made of polypropylene and cost INR 200 per kg.
To pack fast food, they first put it into the non-woven plastic carry bag for the customers. One of the sellers said that he is using the last old stock and added that most of the sellers use carry bags made of brown paper, which costs around INR 1 and INR 2 per piece; and mentioned that he tried to find the polypropylene clear bags but was not available in the market.
According to the sellers, even some members of Naga groups are checking the usage of single-use plastic bags around the market areas and imposing a fine of around INR 1000 to INR 1500, depending on the quantity of the plastic bags seized.
Albert Ezung, the administrator of Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC), told Eastern Mirror on Saturday that the DMC is part of the District Task Force on plastic ban, which is headed by the deputy commissioner of Dimapur; and a team headed by SDO (C) has already been constituted and will be conducting another checking in the commercial hub soon.
