The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has directed all the major malls and chain stores in Greater Hyderabad limits to display the prices of plastic carry bags they charge customers and also the discounts given on purchases if customers carry their own cloth or jute bags.

The list is to be displayed at the cash counters by September 15.

Municipal commissioner MT Krishna Babu, along with additional commissioner (H&S) L Vandan Kumar, held a meeting with major wholesale and retail dealers, shopping malls with regard to ban on usage of plastic carry bags and to encourage usage of cloth and jute bags as per the notification of the Union ministry of environment and forest.

The commissioner said customers, carrying their own cloth or jute bags to shops and purchase goods worth `500, should be given a discount of Rs 3 on the total purchase bill and a discount of `5  is proposed if the purchase value exceeds Rs 1,000. 

He said the main objective of the exercise is to discourage the use of plastic carry bags and not to harass shop owners.

Because customers were now being charged for the bags, the usage of plastic carry bags had come down by 40 percent in the last two years and shoppers started carrying their own cloth or jute bags, he claimed.

Representative of GVK One, Spencer’s Hyper Market, Mor Supermarket, Reliance Fresh Limited, Shopper’s Stoppe, City Mall, Big Bazaar, Food World, Ratnadeep Super Market, Rainbow Industries, Chintamani Plastic Industries, Balaji Grand Bazar, Durga Plastics, Popular Plastics and other reputed business managements and office-bearers of trade body FAPCCI, senior officials of the health wing of the municipal corporation participated in the meeting.