Coimbatore Corporation officials on Monday seized over 100 kg banned plastic items from more than 30 shops in raids conducted across the city.
According to sources in the Corporation’s health wing, sanitary supervisors, sanitary inspectors and senior officials raided shops in all the five zones and seized the items, mostly plastic carry bags, plastic-coated paper cups and a few other items and slapped over ₹25,000 in fine.
The sources said that the officials resumed the raid on Monday after they returned from election work and resumed their routine work – supervising conservancy work. Monday’s raid was not a special drive, but part of the routine work that the officials had been doing prior to the start of the election process.
The health wing officials had been raiding grocery stores, juice shops, and bars attached to liquor outlets, looking for the banned items.
During the raids, they faced resistance from shopkeepers who claimed that they had stored plastic covers as primary packing materials, which the State Government had exempted from the ban.
The officials, however, continued to seize those items as the government had banned those after categorising those as one-time use plastic items, the sources explained and added that the Corporation was engaged in talks with the traders’ body to sort out the issue.
Since the promulgation of the government’s ban on one-time use plastic items on January 1 this year, the Corporation had seized 2,404 kg banned plastic goods from nearly 14,000 establishments and imposed ₹ 5.19 lakh as fine on the owners.