BENGALURU: Many vendors and customers at KR Market expressed their displeasure at the ban on plastics. Shop keepers are hiding away stashes of polythene bags and this reporter saw one tuck a clutch into her saree folds!
There are a few who express support but don’t follow through with action. Masood Ahmed, a fruit vendor, said, “We are giving free cloth bags, it helps the government and also the environment. I will support this drive”. It was a bold statement, but then we saw him pull out a plastic bag from under a pile of fruits to serve a customer.
Lakshmamma, a fruit and flower vendor, said she was losing customers to the corporation’s eco-friendly drive.
“Plastic bags were no trouble,” she said. “Our customers don’t carry bags so these bags were convenient. We can’t afford to buy expensive cloth bags and so we are losing customers because we are not able to provide them with an alternative.If we give them cloth bags, our customers are not willing to pay for them.”
Pittarajammma was struggling to carry a batch of apples she had just bought. She had to take them by bus and the best a seller could manage was a torn plastic cover. “It just keeps falling,” she said. “And my money is wasted.”
The plastic ban comes as a huge blow to people operating from this market, who are mostly small time sellers. Their only income comes from the sales here. When the ban is affecting it, they have resorted to subterfuge. “We have hidden some covers,” said Nagamalli Ranganath. “We’ll sell until this stock lasts and we have to see what will happen next. When the policemen were around, we lost four customers since we could not offer them bags. Now we need to spend more time hunting for plastic bags and losing precious hours in business.”
There are always the paper bags as a cheaper alternative, but they cannot bear the weight.
“Paper bags tear under the weight of vegetables and fruits, especially since they sweat,” said Nagamalli. “Another reason why polythene bags are more convenient.”
The vendors say that if BBMP is truly keen on a green initiative, they should sell cloth bags cheap. “Though the government is trying to do some good, the ban is working badly for our sales,” said C Narasimha.
Till cloth bags come cheap, the vendors said that they would defy the order and continue to find better hiding places for their plastic bundles.