Traders council asks for one year lean period to comply with single-use plastic ban
India Today
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Sunday asked Bhupender Yadav, the Union Environment Minister, for a one-year lean period to comply with the ban on single-use plastic.
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Sunday asked Bhupender Yadav, the Union Environment Minister, for a one-year lean period to comply with the ban on single-use plastic that came into effect on July 1. It gave its recommendations to the minister in order to protect those employed in the industry.
Among the recommendations given by the CAIT national president BC Bhartia and secretary general Praveen Khandelwal were a conciliatory approach instead of coercive methods for the implementation of the ban, formation of a joint committee of officials and stakeholders for developing equitable alternatives and launching of a nationwide education and awareness drive. They also recommended a support policy for manufacturing units to switch over their business to other alternatives in order to protect the large number of employees under them.
Bhartia and Khandelwal also said serious initiatives are required to ensure that the usage of single-use plastic is minimised in the transformation period. They said rolling out phases of minimised usage can lead to a situation where there is zero usage of single-use plastic.
ALSO READ | Single-use plastic ban kicks in from today: What you need to know
They further added that a comprehensive, collaborative and participatory approach is needed to ensure that the country should be free from single-use plastic in a short time. They asked for ‘participatory governance’ as advocated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure the success of this initiative.
The confederation urges Yadav to direct the concerned departments not to take any coercive action against any trader or unit for at least the first year. It asked Yadav to launch a national campaign with the support of all stakeholders to make it a national movement like the Jan Dhan Yojna.
They suggested constituting a joint committee of senior government officials and representatives of stakeholders with a time-bound mandate of suggesting and developing equitable alternatives to single-use plastic so that the country stops using single-use plastic without any disruption.
