Assam: Open sale of firecrackers defying established rules decried in Tinsukia

A Correspondent

DOOMDOOMA: The firecracker sellers in Tinsukia are selling firecrackers in the market defying established rules and regulations to be observed by them. This came to light when the fire brigade department and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Tinsukia made a joint awareness programme in the town in view of ensuing dipawali. This does not augur well as there are every likelihood of occuring a big disaster during celebration of diwali.

Most of these shops lie in the busy AT Road, the main market place. While some other shops are  in the GNB road in whose vicinity too some of such markets are located. As per rules laid down by fire brigade, such sellers can sell the firecrackers only during daytime  upto evening and after that they have to take away the firecrackers to their respective godowns situated in the locality far away from the town. The following morning they can again bring back the firecrackers to their shops but they can do so like samples displayed in the showcases of the shops. Notably this rule applies only in the case of wholesellers as licence for the retailers are yet to be issued by the authority while the licence issued to the wholesellers have validity upto one year.

Another glaring example of defiance is selling of firecrackers in the cloth and footwear shops. As is evident the municipal authority issue trade licences only for trading particular type of items as per classifications laid down. Then how come the wholesellers of firecrackers are selling their products in such shops.

Again it is learnt from the sources that in Tinsukia there are only six such genuine wholesellers having necessary licence. But  against this, more than ten wholesellers are carrying on their firecrackers trade clandestinely under the very nose of the authority.

What is even more worrying, instead of displaying the samples of their products in showcases they put the whole stock in huge quantities together in one place in the space provided to them by those shops. Such shops are lying at intervals from one another though they are not having trade licences for doing this sort of illegal trade. These activities are prone to accident and in view of their location in busy market place one cannot rule out occuring of disasters beyond one’s apprehension.

Rituraj Baruah, secretary, central committee of Environmental Protection Committee, Assam sought the intervention of the Tinsukia district administration and urged them to take strong legal action against those so that life and properties of people are not at stake. He further said that although the Supreme court in its verdict dated October 23, 2018 banned firecrackers of high decibel, yet the unscrupulous traders are seen to be selling these banned products openly caring little to the administration.

Mention may be made here that the Supreme Court in that verdict advocated for use of green firecrackers although in its another verdict dated October 10, 2022, it even banned the green crackers in Delhi because of high level of air pollution prevailing there.

However, it also placed restrictions on Diwali celebrations, allowing the use of firecrackers only from 8 to 10 pm.  It further banned online puchase of firecrackers through agencies like Flipkart and Amazon.

Ellora Vigyan Mancha, Doomdooma branch submitted a memorandum to Doomdooma Co-District Commissioner on Thursday urging the administration not to allow high decibel firecrackers and to keep vigil on strict observance of the Supreme Court verdict in observance of ensuing Dipawali.

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