ANNOUNCEMENTS
With nearly 1 trillion annual consumption of plastic bags spread across the world due to their multifaceted and convenient characteristics. Due to the existence of associated market failure with plastic menace calls for the emergence of government interventions to address the plastic issue. Several countries, as a result, have successfully been able to reduce the plastic consumption by adopting certain policy measures.
In India too, there has been the formulation of plastic ban policy since 1999. Despite the legislation have been in place, the country’s plastic consumption instead of coming down have increased in the past two decades – which is why this research is undertaken.
Therefore, the study attempts to examine the several plastic bag regulations which have been in place and tries to find an answer to – why is it so that despite the policy measures been adopted, the plastic use is rampant? The study recognizes the underlying factors behind such government failure to correct for the market failure. Moreover, some international comparisons are drawn to attain some practical insights in respect to the policies in different countries.
The study is been divided such that – chapter 2 briefs the literature stating the general factors which lead to policy failures as well as the factors contributing to the policy failures in particular relation to the plastic policies in Indian context. Chapter 3 talks about the detailed analysis of the legal judgements that came up against the non-implementation of plastic ban policy – so as to identify the root causes behind the implementation failures. Chapter 4 covers the different countries experiences in relation to their adoption of plastic policy measures and how, if possible, can the lessons be drawn in Indian context for the betterment of our policy structure and its implementation.
