Blanket ban in Tamil Nadu on manja threads, violators to be penalised under Environment Act

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India]: The Tamil Nadu government has issued a complete ban on manufacture, sale, storage and use of kite flying threads popularly known as ‘manja threads’ made out of nylon, plastic or any other synthetic material.

The state government claimed that this is a step to prevent injury and sometimes even death of people, animals, and especially birds during kite flying competitions or otherwise.

According to a statement issued by Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forest Department, an order to this effect was issued by the State government on October 6, 2023, which was further notified in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette on October 30.

Sahu took to social media app X on Tuesday to share the gazette notification and wrote that the initiative is a big step towards preventing injury and sometimes even death of people, animals and especially birds during kite flying competitions or otherwise.

“It is a fact that during kite flying, a lot of injuries are caused to people and birds on account of pucca thread made out of plastic or similar synthetic material commonly known as manjha thread. These injuries many times turn out to be fatal causing the death of people, animals and birds. It is, therefore, desirable to protect the people and birds from the fatal effects of the kite thread made out of plastic or synthetic thread, known as manjha,” read the order.

“During the kite flying several kites get out in the sky as a consequence of kite competition or otherwise, all these cut threads along with the kite remain on the land, because of the very long life plastic material and being non-biodegradable in nature, these continue to be causing problems.

They cause problems such as blockage of sewers, drainage lines, and natural waterways such as rivers, and streams and also cause suffocation of cows and other animals who eat food items along with such plastic materials. Thus the impact of such plastic materials used for making thread commonly manjha thread are many and varied,” it added.

There shall be a total ban on the manjha or thread for kite flying which is made of nylon or any synthetic material or coated with synthetic substances and is non-biodegradable, added the order.

Whoever fails to comply with or contravenes any of the above orders or directions shall be liable to be penalized under the provisions of the Environment (Protections) Act, 1986. The above directions shall come into force from the date of the publication of this notification in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette, it added further.