Reliable sources said that the state law department had cleared the draft notification, which Department of Science, Technology and Environment proposes to issue under the Himachal Pradesh Non-Biodegradable Garbage (Control) Act 1995. "File has gone to Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for his signatures," a senior government official told the ENS, here today.

The move to ban the use of the polythene bags by traders, retailers and vendors in all the urban towns of the state has come as a sequel to intentions shown by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to impose a similar ban on the bags under Provisions of the Environment Protection Act.

Since Himachal Pradesh had already enacted its own law to deal with the menace of the polythene bags, government decided to make a beginning even before the Centre issues proposed notification. In a meeting convened by the state Chief Secretary O.P. Yadav at the initiative of commissioner-cum-secretary, Science, Technology and Environment, Rajwant Sandhu had already taken a decision earlier this month to ban the use of the coloured polythene bags particularly those made from the recycled material.However, assent of the law department was awaited for giving a practical shape to the move.

The current move, in fact, is a step forward to government's earlier measure banning littering of the used polythene bags at public places, hill slopes and drainage system covering all urban hill towns of Himachal. The provisions of the HP Non-Biodegradable Garbage (Control) Act, under which littering of the bags was banned earlier were limited to towns of Shimla and Manali alone.

The state government had taken a decision, to invoke the ban on the use of polythene bags of specific categories under the 1995 Act and then examine the scope of implementation of the notification, which the Centre proposes to issue sometime later. "Information received here about the measures being taken by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests show that the ministry is basically dealing with the polythene bags from health point of view but Himachal had considered polythene bags as menace, threat to environment, pollution and insanitation," say officials.

The state government had also commissioned a separate survey on polythene bags manufacturing units in the state and had come to the conclusion that the units could be allowed to continue with their productions and any kind of ban on use of the bags would not make these units unviable. Moreover, the scope of the ban was limited to coloured bags made from the recycled materials.