GADAG: Abbigeri Gram Panchayat has come up with a novel idea to check plastic use in the village by roping in Sanjeevini Women’s Group.
They are distributing cloth bags to each and every villager with an aim to make the village plastic-free.
A month ago, the GP members held a meeting with various women’s groups. They decided to collect old clothes from houses, get them coloured, stitched by tailors in the village and distribute them among villagers for Rs 2 per bag. The GP staff formed three women’s groups and collected old clothes. As the population of Abbigeri village is around 16,000, they stitched 15,000 bags.
Every bag has a printed message which reads “avoid plastic, save environment”.
Now, bags are ready for distribution and the groups will distribute these bags by visiting each household, sources said.
Kalakappa Billa, Gram Panchayat president, said, “Plastic is hazardous and it is mostly used for buying kitchen items. Hence, we took the help of a women’s group to create awareness about ill-effects of plastic among villagers. Now, we are strictly implementing the order on plastic ban and decided to impose a fine on whoever uses plastic.”
Saraswati Navalli of Sanjeevini Women’s Group, said, “Now, we are distributing cloth bags to every villager. We have visited almost all the shops in the village and offered them the bags. We cannot depend on the government for everything. We can do it on our own. It may take some time, but we will make Abbigeri a plastic-free village.”