HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) campaign to make meat shop owners reward customers who give up plastic bags and opt for a tiffin box is an unheard of campaign among meat shop owners in Yousufguda and surrounding areas. The shop owners say, they were given a mere warning for using plastic bags below 50 microns by GHMC officials in a recent visit.
Urban development experts say the indiscriminate use of plastic bags is a contributing factor in the blockage of Hyderabad’s storm water and drainage system. To plug the problem at its source, GHMC had started a drive against the use of plastic below 50 micron. With the drive against plastic now officially over on October 2, GHMC officials kickstarted a campaign to offer a price money of `1,000 through a lucky draw for meat shop customers. The idea is that, any customer who brings a tiffin box thus giving up a plastic bag would be eligible for the lucky draw.
Under this campaign, the cash price of `1,000 has to be shelled out by the shopkeeper, but GHMC officials maintain that this won’t cost much to the shopkeeper in the long run as he offset the cash price cost by not having to buy anymore plastic bags. The GHMC presently has no plans to blanket ban the use of any plastic bags.
Only, no chicken or mutton shop owner has heard of such a campaign. “I have not heard of such a campaign,” said Yadagiri, owner of Veni chicken centre, Yousufguda basti. “GHMC officials pasted a poster asking people not to use plastic bags.”The response from chicken shop owners at Sri Kirshna Nagar, Yousufuda basti too was similar. The GHMC campaign comes a year after plastic bags below 50 micron in size were banned from use. “What was the use of banning 50 micron plastic bags? Now there are 51 microns size plastic bags available,” said Mahmood Alam owner of Khadim mutton center at Sir Krishna Nagar. The plastic bags with bigger micron size are costly and have lesser quantity, so it is not cost effective to buy them,” he added.
Slow mobilisation
GHMC’s chief medical and sanitation officer, Ganesh Babu, on the other hand, clarified :”We are mobilising slowly circle by circle, maybe that is why the shopkeepers haven’t heard of the campaign. Our officials are trying to enroll shop owners.”