Workshop stresses effective ban on SUP items
Source: Chronicle News Service / DIPR

Imphal, April 04 2025: With plastic waste affecting every aspect of the state, the need to ban all Single Use Plastic (SUP) products and encouraging the usage of other alternative products is the need of the hour, said principal secretary (MAHUD) RK Dinesh.

He was speaking at the one-day consultative workshop on Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 (Ban of Single Use Plastic Items)', organised by Department of MAHUD, Directorate of Forest, Environment and Climate Change (DoECC), and Manipur Pollution Control Board (MPCB) at Sangai Hall of Hotel Imphal on Friday.

Workshop stresses effective ban on SUP items

The workshop was attended by Forest, Environment and Climate Change principal secretary Arun Kumar Sinha, DoECC director T Brajakumar and Social Welfare director Ngangom Uttam Singh, along with officials of various departments, editors and journalists of various media houses.

RK Dinesh said that as there is no industrial composting in the state, SUPs are scattered at every step across the state.

"Most of the plastic waste includes items which we used daily, from small items to big items.

Apart from impacting the environment, it is also not good for our health".

He continued that plastics take a long time to break down and as such, affect the soil nutrition.

It is also not wise to burn the same as the fumes are hazardous for human health.

If no ban is imposed on prohibited plastic items, then the situation would only get worse and Imphal City would no longer have even a place to stand which is not littered with plastic, he observed.

Reflecting on frequent occurrence of flash floods in Imphal City and surrounding areas due to blockage of drains with plastics, Rk Dinesh said that SUPs need to be banned to prevent the same.

For this, importers, sellers and users need to be award of the adverse impacts of SUPs.

Anyone found violating the same should be punished according to the law, he stressed.

Forest, Environment and Climate Change principal secretary Arun Kumar Sinha, in his speech, highlighted the need for complete implementation of Manipur Plastic Policy, 2022.Under this policy, stockists and distributors need to strictly abide by the guidelines.

Anyone found violating the guidelines would have to pay a fine of Rs 2000-10,000 or have their commercial license cancelled.

Street vendors could be fined Rs 200-3000 and their trade documents confiscated, he informed.

Meanwhile, MPCB has called for popularisation of the SUP (Single Use Plastic) Public Grievance App, aimed at controlling the menace of pollution due to Single Use Plastics in the country.

The need to popularise the SUP Public Grievance App was taken, following the Board's Proceedings of Second Inter-Departmental Coordination Meeting on 'Cleanliness of Imphal City' held earlier on March 7 .

The SUP Public Grievance App was earlier launched by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi to ensure citizen participation for effective enforcement on the ban of SUP items identified in the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 (as amended).

The move was taken in alignment with India's commitment to ban identified SUP items by June 30, 2022, in response to PM Narendra Modi's clarion call to phase out SUPs by 2022 during then World Environment Day (June 5, 2018) .

Public can report the usage, manufacturing or stocking of banned Single Use Plastic (SUP) items to the concerned authority through the App.

The App can be downloaded and installed by scanning the QR Code uploaded in the CPCB website "cpcb.nic.in" or from Google Play Store or Apple Store, MPCB informed.