Jammu, July 23 -- The ban on polythene bags in Jammu and Kashmir exists mostly on paper. Walk through any market, and thin plastic bags-officially outlawed-are everywhere: wrapped around vegetables, dangling from carts, handed out by shopkeepers without a second thought. The prohibition is real; the compliance is not.
The reason isn't hard to find. Banned polythene is cheap, and cheap matters to vendors running on thin margins in an inflationary economy. Authorized alternatives cost more, and for a rehriwalla or small shopkeeper trying to make ends meet, the calculus is simple: risk an occasional fine over protect an abstraction like "the environment." Livelihood beats ecology every time this trade-off is left unaddressed by policy.
The J...