LUCKNOW: The Gandhigiri campaign against usage of polythene , which began on Thursday, failed to create an impact on public on the first day partially because of lack of people's participation and largely due to LMC's half-hearted efforts.While the DM had announced the drive from 4pm till 6 pm, various zonal offices of LMC began the drive around 5pm amid lack of preparation. They wound up their drives by around 6pm, visiting just 6-7 shops in a row.TOI's survey even found that LMC's team was only collecting polythene from small vendors but ignored the permanent shops.Officials in zone IV, which covers Gomtinagar and Indiranagar, were reluctant to begin the drive on Thursday and wanted to postpone it to Friday.It was only after TOI called them up that officials managed to begin the drive by 5.30pm. All teams carried big banners with the slogan 'Polythene ke viruddh Gandhigiri', followed by 15-20 people visiting different shops in a market. However, instead of educating people about polythene's ill-effects, they simply went and seized polythene and disposable glasses from the shops.A similar approach was adopted while checking Kapoorthala Market in zone 3. At many places, no announcements were made.Anuj Kannaujia, a resident, said, "It's good to launch such drives but at least they should educate people while seizing polythene, else the drive will lose purpose. They didn't explain the reason, nor informed us about the rules."Aditya Gupta of Patrakarpuram said such drives have taken place earlier also but because of poor follow-up, shopkeepers and public return to reusing it.LMC has decided to follow the Gandhigiri path till July 14.

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