Bengaluru: A photograph of Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun presenting a gift wrapped in plastic to the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa went viral recently, and she ‘voluntarily’ paid a fine of Rs 500 for the violation.
Plastic was banned in the city since 2016 and several plastic traders had been penalised in the past for storing and using the plastic products.
In her statement, the Mayor said, “My photograph of gifting a basket of dry fruits wrapped with a plastic cover to the chief minister went viral in the social media. Being the first citizen of the city, I did not wish to send across a wrong message to the people of the city. Hence, I decided to pay the penalty of Rs 500.”
Although there is a provision against traders for selling plastic since 2016, there is no clause in the rules for punishing those using the product, said the Mayor and hence there would be a proposal to impose fine on users and it would be incorporated in the law, she added.
“In order to spread awareness among masses about the problems posed by polythene bags, I decided to pay the penalty even before this clause is incorporated in the plastic ban bylaw,” the mayor said.
“Even the efforts to create awareness among people did not yield any result. If we continue to use plastic the way we are doing it now, it will become killer for our coming generations because plastic never gets destroyed even after thousand years,” she pointed out.