COIMBATORE: After almost six months, the Coimbatore Corporation again started cracking the whip on people selling plastic bags below 50 microns.

The civic body seized five tonne of banned plastic bags from wholesale shops in Thomas Street and Raja Street on Tuesday. The last time, the civic body conducted a raid was in 2016 when 500kg of banned plastic bags were seized from a shop at Sundarapuram in the south zone of the civic body.

According to the assistant city health officer Santhosh Kumar, officials received an information on Monday morning that banned plastic bags were being brought from Erode to godowns in Thomas Street and Raja Street. The sanitary workers in the area followed the trucks and kept the officials informed about their movement.

At around 10.30am, two trucks were stopped and five tonne of plastic was seized.

Two tonne of banned plastic bags were seized when they were being unloaded from a truck. Sanitary officers and inspectors were also present during the raid.

Santhosh Kumar said that according to the new solid waste management rules, 2016, plastics less than 50 microns are banned and should not be used.

Nearly eight small scale plastic bag manufacturers are functioning in Velandipalayam area in the city. Civic body officials visited them last week and conducted inspections.

"We found that all the manufacturers in the city are following rules. These banned plastics are coming into the city from the nearby districts such as Erode and Salem and some also from Kerala," said a sanitary inspector.

MADURAI: The Ramanathapuram municipality has successfully collected its long pending tax dues from about 20 people by resorting to a novel method - keeping overflowing garbage dumps in front of the houses or shops of those evading tax dues. What has apparently helped the municipality have its way is the absence of an elected council whose members usually intervene for the tax evaders, mostly affluent people.

The authorities of this first-grade municipality with a population of 61, 440 spread over 6.33 sqkm across 33 wards had managed to collect '1.40 crore out of the '1.50 crore tax dues pending for the past five years. The town has a literacy rate of 93.07%. Municipality sources said that the outstanding dues worked out to about '1.5 crores mainly by way of property tax pending for about five years and other taxes for seven years.

Those who paid their taxes on time were mostly the economically weaker sections and they very rarely received notices. On the other hand, some affluent people who had some political clout had been evading tax payment for the past five years.

"We kept on issuing notices, but they were ignored. If we sent them notices warning of penal action, we would get phone calls from the chairman or the councillors asking us to refrain from further action,'' the sources said. Shantha (named changed) of Keeraikara Street in the municipality said that she had at first felt angry when the overflowing bin suddenly appeared in their street, but when workers told her that it was to collect long-pending dues she had agreed to put up with it.

Municipality commissioner A Abdul Rashid assumed office in September 2016 and was presented with a long files of pending dues. With the period of the council coming to an end the very next month, it was left to the commissioner, who also became the municipality's special officer, to collect the dues. Notices were issued and when there was no sign of the pending dues filling the coffers, the municipality resorted to placing garbage bins which were not emptied regularly.