Maha: Hotel owner fined Rs 5,000 for using plastic food wrap

After imposing fines on a civic official and a BJP corporator for using plastic material, the city's new municipal commissioner has slapped a fine on a hotel owner for use of plastic in his premises.

Aurangabad Municipal Commissioner Astik Kumar Pandey during an inspection along with his team in Samarthnagar on Wednesday found that a hotel in the area was using plastic for wrapping food items.

Pandey ordered his team members to slap a fine of Rs 5,000 on the hotel owner, an official said on Thursday.

Pandey, who took charge on Monday, had imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on a civic official who came to welcome him with a bouquet that had plastic wrapping.

The official, an assistant director in the town planning department, had to pay the fine amount on the spot.

On Tuesday, BJP corporator Manisha Munde presented a pen packed in a gift paper to Pandey.

The civic chief slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on her also for using the wrapper.

Government offices across the country have been making efforts to ban single-use plastic items from their premises after a call for their elimination was made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech this year.

In June last year, the Maharashtra government imposed a ban on a variety of plastic products, including single-use disposable items, and started penalising all those found using them.

It banned manufacturing, use, sale, distribution and storage of plastic materials such as bags, spoons, plates and other disposable items.

The ban also included packaging material and thermocol.