Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Sunday announced that the Cabinet has decided to impose a ban on the sale and use of Plastic products in the Union Territory from March 1. Narayansamy said, ” Puducherry government will impose a ban on plastic usage from March 1. ‘The Decision is taken to keep the environment clean’ he added while saying that government is planning to launch a massive awareness campaign across UT to make people aware about the necessity of imposing a ban.
While addressing the Presser after the Cabinet Meeting, CM said, “We want to gift a plastic-free Puducherry to the future generation and curb the plastic in the larger interest of the environment.” He added that Cabinet has also proposed to introduce ‘voluntary retirement scheme’ for the workers and staff of the century-old Anglo-French Textiles (AFT) mill and two other textile mills, named Bharathi and Swadeshi (run by Puducherry Textile corporation) in a phased manner in the next six months.
Earlier, the neighboring Tamil Nadu, had on Environment day in June had announced to put a ban on plastic, to be effected from Jan 1, 2019. Plastic Ban in Tamil Nadu set to kick in from Jan 1
On March 23, The Maharashtra Government issued a notification imposing a ban on manufacture, use, sale, and distribution of all plastic materials like bags, spoons, Disposable utensils. Later in April last year, the Bombay High Court had called the ban ‘reasonable’.