District Collector Fines Himself Rs 5,000 After For Violating ban on single-use plastic

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Rayyan Ahmed

Aurangabad, 10th October 2019 : The district collector of Maharashtra’s Beed district Asteek Kumar Pandey imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on himself after a journalist pointed out to the use of plastic cups in the collector’s office.

The episode took place on Monday when the administration of the district called for a press conference at the collector’s office to release information about the candidates who had backed out from the assembly elections. The journalists who were attending the conference were served tea in single-use plastic cups. When one of them pointed out and claimed this was a grave violation of the state-wide imposed plastic ban, Pandey took cognizance of the matter. He later acknowledged the mistake by his department and imposed a fine. Meanwhile, as soon as the press conference ended up, Pandey pulled up the officials for failing to implement the ban even in the collector’s office. The authorities of the district stated that after the state assembly elections, the authorities would work towards the effective implementation of the plastic ban.

Reportedly, this was a second such incident when the plastic related fine was imposed at the collector’s office in the last eight days. In the previous incident, a poll aspirant who had come to file his nomination papers was carrying the deposit money in plastic money. Reportedly as soon as the officials noticed the violation, the aspirant was charged with a fine of Rs 5,000.

As per the ban, selling or using single-use plastic is banned in the state, also, as per the government’s directives single-use plastic is banned in all government offices across the country. In a bid to spread awareness the Election Commission too has banned the usage of single-use plastic during the campaigns in all poll-bound states.