Patna, March 3: A recent Supreme Court ban on the sale of pan masala in plastic packets has hardly had an effect on the buyers and sellers of tobacco-based products in the state capital. The sale continues unabated.

Betel shop owners still openly store and sell pan masala, guthka and other tobacco-based products in plastic packets. Some of them claim that the ban is for manufacturers and not the sellers.

“As long as the product keeps coming to the stores, we will sell them,” said a betel shop owner on Boring Road.

He, however, quickly added that the supply of these products to Patna had taken a beating since the apex court order of March 1.

According to the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rule 2011, under the provisions of Environment Protection Act 1986, no product can be sold in plastic packets or bags of less than 40 microns thickness. This also includes pan masala in plastic packets.

The Centre had passed the order on February 4 this year. However, the Supreme Court ratified it this month.

Another betel shop owner at Income Tax roundabout said he was not concerned about the new rule.

“Such rules are made from time to time but they do not have much of an impact in the long run. The fate of this order too will be the same,” he said.

According to the new rule, the municipal corporation, rather than the district administration, would be responsible for enforcing the ban.

Asked what the state government is doing to implement the order of the apex court, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi told The Telegraph: “The Centre should ban the manufacturing units of such products in states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. When the manufacturing stops, the supply too will cease. The ban on plastic packets is not enough.”

Modi, who also holds the forest and environment portfolio, added: “It will take some time to ban it completely. The Centre should give enough time to implement their order. The people who sell these products have very small businesses. If the product is banned suddenly they will suffer huge losses.”

Modi had, however, on February 24 said the state government was contemplating a blanket ban on all usage of plastic as a packaging material.