PM can lead the way for green Lok Sabha polls
After decades of polite prodding by the Union environment ministry and routine follow up letters from the Election Commission, the war on non-biodegradable materials moved one notch higher on Monday with the Kerala High Court barring the use of single-use plastics and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) flex boards as election materials. A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy was hearing a PIL on making the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections eco-friendly.
Plastics being cost effective, a lot of campaign materials such as flags, festoons, cut-outs, hoardings and banners are made out of them and later discarded as election waste. Unfortunately the waste materials end up choking the drainage system and polluting the environment. Open air burning of PVC materials, too, is not an option as it produces toxic emissions, the Union environment ministry pointed out in its latest missive to the Election Commission on January 17, requesting it to ask all stakeholders to use alternative poll material.
What the EC appears to have done is a postman’s job, as it had been doing since 1999—forwarding the ministry’s letter to all states with a covering letter. No wonder, the message lacked teeth. Perhaps someone like T N Seshan at the helm would have acted differently. It was finally left to the High Court to turn the narrative around by issuing a speaking order.
While the High Court order is restricted to Kerala, other states that have already enforced a ban on single-use plastics like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu could replicate it. Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year set a 2022 deadline for banning single-use plastics in India, he himself could take the lead by making the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections green. By using alternative materials, the cost would go up but that is the price the country needs to pay for cleaning up the mess.