Tourists to the Nilgiris and the residents there will no longer get water or soft drinks in plastic bottles, following a Madras High Court order banning sale of plastic bottles in the hill district.
As an alternative, the district administration has installed 70 water vending machines, two of which Collector J. Innocent Divya inaugurated on Sunday. She inaugurated a machine each at the Botanical Garden and Charring Cross Junction, from where the public can fetch water at ₹ 5 a litre.
Following the Court direction, the Collector had imposed the ban with August 15 as the deadline. But the recent rain and its impact in the district had drawn the administration’s focus and energy towards relief and rehabilitation.
Now with September 1 as the deadline, the administration had imposed the ban, sources said and added that it would install more water vending machines in the days to come.
