The municipal agencies are responsible for enforcing bans that place different restrictions on use of plastic bags that are either made of coloured material or of less that 20 micron thickness.

'Not a single Indian city has a proper solid waste disposal system - but there are cities like in Nainital where the ban has worked - there are other towns with small populations where initiative of the local municipal commissioner has resulted in success,' said Yadav.

NGO Toxics Link's director Ravi Aggarwal said that 'the ministry's view and what Mr. Ramesh suggested won't work'.

'Plastics were introduced at a time when India had the highest-growing plastic industry in the world - the reason the bans are tough to implement is because the real issue is identifying which bags are how thick and there is high consumption at a low cost. The minister has unfortunately made generic statements.'

Plastics have different degrees of safety, Aggarwal said.

'Clubbing different plastics of varying compositions -- either low or high density polyethylene plastics -- often makes it impossible to recycle.'

The environmental activists agreed that a 'national level policy' on using alternatives, imposing tax or making plastic bags costly would help rather than pushing the less viable biodegradable plastic bags -- made of starch and sugar content often enhanced with chemicals.

Yadav said that 'it's not only paper bags -- there is a huge amount of agricultural residues that can be used in bags as alternatives to plastics'.

'There is no point in passing the buck,' said Aggarwal, adding that a strong national level policy would yield results.