MANGALORE: Mangalore city is facing an uphill task in controlling the plastics menace. The city corporation, Mangalore Urban Development Authority and the district administration along with a few non-governmental organisations appear to have stopped their campaign against the menace.

Plastic carry bags are found on the city's streets, localities, extensions and vacant plots, and most of the drains are blocked with them.

People of Mangalore seem to like to carry colourful plastic carry bags back home from market. As a result, vegetables, fish, ration, fruits and other items get carried in plastic bags. Every shopkeeper dispenses hundreds of plastic carry bags to his customers for the purchases they make.

A supplier of plastic carry bags in the city, Mohammad Kyumbu of Palakkad, told The Hindu that after the Kerala Government banned the use of plastic bags, Karnataka became the first market for him.He said that his company alone supplied at least three tonnes of plastic carry bags every day to shops in the city.

The Mangalore City Parisarasktha Okkoota, which launched a campaign against the menace in the 1990s, now appears to have given up its struggle. Likewise, the district administration issued a notification in 2001, highlighting the dangers of the use of polythene and specified that bags below 20 microns should not be used.

The city corporation, which launched a campaign in 1999 and 2000, is now silent on the issue.

Chairman of the Mangalore Urban Development Authority Madhava Bhandary said that he had spoken to Deputy Commissioner M. Maheshwara Rao about regulating the use of polythene bags in the city.

Mayor Vijaya Arun, who agreed with Dr. Bhandary that such bags blocked drains, said that engineers of the city corporation had reported to her that there were several blocked drains in the city which might cause flooding during the monsoon. The Central Market Merchants' Association had asked its members to display a signboard in front of their shops asking customers to "bring their own bags". But the shopkeepers had to face resentment from customers.

Member of the okkoota Suresh Shetty said that while the fight against polythene bags was still on the agenda of the okkoota, it was only the people who could take a decision on the use of such bags.

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