Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday that it was time for the world to say good-bye to single-use plastics, and that the world would follow India in this. He was speaking at the Conference of Parties (COP14) to United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Greater Noida.
The PM said that India will do away with single-use plastics in the coming years and the rest of the world should follow suit. In his speech, the Prime Minister spoke of the adverse effects of climate change.
Earlier, in his Independence Day speech, the PM had called for banning the use of single-use plastics and urged authorities to implement it from October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Following this, Indian Railways has already decided to ban single-use plastics in trains from the said date. Modi had also discussed the idea of getting rid of single-use plastics in last month’s Mann Ki Baat issue – calling for a “new mass movement”.
On Monday, the Prime Minister said that India has grown its forest cover by 0.8 million hectares from 2015 to 2017. The current forest cover in India stands at 21 million hectares which is to increase to 26 million hectares by 2030. He added that a fund of Rs 43,000 crore has been disbursed to the state governments for development of forest land. He said that India would use remote sensing and space technology to fight land degradation and that it would also extend help in this to other countries as well.
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