Mumbai: The Mumbai police have banned the use of ‘manja', the synthetic, plastic, nylon kite threads, during the festival of Makar Sankranti between January 12 to February 10. This is in view of protecting the citizens and birds from fatal incidents and the environment from plastic waste.
According to a routine order issued on Friday by Vishal Thakur, DCP, Operations, Mumbai Police, "Every year during the kite flying festival, injury is caused to people and birds due to pucca thread made out of plastic or similar synthetic material commonly known as nylon manja. Many times, these injuries turn out fatal causing deaths. Therefore, it is desirable to protect people and birds from the fatal effects of the kite flying thread made out of nylon or plastic or synthetic thread,’ the order stated.
Why was the ban implemented?
According to the order, these threads continue to cause problems such as blockage of sewer lines, drainage lines, natural waterways such as rivers and streams, adverse effects on soil and waterways and cattle population caused by cutting or falling of such threads, suffocation of cows and other animals who ingest food items along with such nylon/plastic materials, and thus the impact of such plastic materials used for making threads is many and varied.
The order further said, extensive use of such synthetic thread often result in flash-over on the power lines and substations, which may cause power interruptions, straining and damaging of electrical assets, cause accidents, injuries to wildlife and loss of life, damage to the environment and, therefore, it is necessary to prevent the use of such nylon threads for kite flying.
