June 23
Nadeem Yusuf
In April this year, the Jammu Kashmir High Court issued an order in the wake of damage to the state’s fragile environs for a ban to be imposed on use of polythene bags in Jammu Kashmir.
The Municipal Corporations and Government Officials have been conducting constant raids and seizing polythene in large quantities from towns and villages as well.
However the unabated usage of polythene continues as the routine practise of targeting the small fish in front of the camera continues, while Big industrialists continue to have a free run.
The state government, under J&K State Non-Bio-degradable Material Act 2007, had imposed a complete ban in 2008 on the manufacture, stocking, distribution, sale, and use of polythene bags.
After the government failed to implement the order despite experts expressed concern that polythene was damaging the state’s environment. Then a PIL was filed to the High Court to enforce complete ban on polythene carry bags.
“In market economies like ours, the small time vendors and petite businessmen always become a victim of Government Policies, while the big fish simply remain untouched,” a social activist Jan Waseem told The Kashmiriyat.
Experts and everyone praises the efforts of the officials who merely pose for the camera and do nothing in real, but harm the people who earn in the day and feed their families at dinner, he said.
Soft Drink Companies, Chips Makers, Polythene companies remain untouched and continue to use and produce the same in large quantities despite the Government ban.
In fact the Environment Law and Executive Director, Centre for Environmental Law has in a recent interview expressed satisfaction and said that the long pending demand of environmentalists and socially concerned citizens to make our state greener and cleaner had been met.