CHENNAI: The Madras High Court questioned why the Tasmac administration has not appointed additional staff to implement the bottle buyback scheme.

The scheme, to buy empty bottles back from the consumer at Tasmac outlets, was rolled out to prevent environmental damage based on the direction of the Madras High Court.

A case related to the scheme came up for hearing again before a special bench of Justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy. During the hearing, counsel for the Tasmac employees submitted that the scheme of collecting empty liquor bottles has increased the workload of the staff, and therefore, the court should issue directions to appoint additional personnel for this task.

The Tasmac’s representation informed the court that the buyback scheme was fully implemented in 22 districts in the state and partially implemented in six. Complete implementation, across Tamil Nadu, would be done by December 31, it was stated.

Following this, the judges questioned the Tasmac administration as to why it had not appointed additional staff to implement the buyback scheme. The bench directed Tasmac to submit the report of the committee formed under the leadership of the Managing Director to examine employee grievances and adjourned the hearing to January.