Industries that want to manufacture alternatives to throw-away plastics can come out with projects and seek support from the government.
Though there is no specific scheme at present to support such initiatives, the requests and suggestions from the industry can be taken up with the government, an official of the District Industries’ Centre here said.
The official said the government gave incentives to investments in thrust sectors such as automobiles, garments, solar energy, and plastics.
Since the State had banned use of one-time use plastic products, there was a proposal earlier to cover manufacture of the alternatives to throw-away plastic products under the thrust sector. However, there was no such order from the government.
One of the alternatives for plastic carry bags was bags made out of starch. The raw material for it was imported.
There were some industries that wanted to make the raw material here and had sought subsidies from the government during the Global Investors Meet. The domestic developers of the raw material wanted to commercialise it.
In the case of arecanut leaf-based products, the units were covered under agro industries and received subsidies.
The Pollution Control Board did conduct an expo of alternative products, even for flex material. Industries interested in manufacturing these could submit their requests, the official said.
President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, V. Lakshminarayanasamy, said the industries manufacturing the alternatives may not know which government department they should approach for support. “We will discuss with our members in this regard,” he said.
