Plastic ban: Visakhapatnam Railway Station officials take Baahubali and Shivagami's help to spread message

Visakhapatnam Railway Station officials have come up with an unusual way to stop travelers from littering plastic across the tracks and in station premises. The authorities have put up posters of Baahubali and Bharath Ane Nenu movie characters, seen urging the daily commuter not to use plastic bags/cups, according to a report in The New Indian Express.

Visakhapatnam Railway Station is maintained well with canteens and other vendors prohibited from using non-biodegradable materials in the station complex. Two bottle crushing machines are installed to avoid rag-pickers who re-sell the uncrushed bottles.

MS Mathur, Divisional Railway manager, said: "Though passengers won’t be fined for the use of plastic, they are regularly told to avoid it inside the station. We want to attract the attention of passengers, so we thought these Tollywood movie stars would have a good impact. Fines are being imposed on vendors using plastics starting from Rs 500."

The plastic ban was imposed last year and a total of 1,322 littering cases have been filed and a fine of Rs 1,32,000 has collected from vendors for continuing the use of plastics from January 2018 till date.