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Delhi Police cracks down on polluting crackers
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
With Diwali less than a month away, the Delhi Police on Thursday began raiding cracker shops across the city to prevent the sale of polluting varieties.
Senior police officials said that since the sale of traditional firecrackers was banned close to the festival season last year, many traders had already acquired large stock that remained unsold.
In 2017, the Supreme Court had banned the sale of polluting firecrackers in the national capital region. Last year, however, it allowed people to burst low-emission ones between 8 pm and 10 pm.
“Last year nearly 4,000 kilos of (polluting) crackers were seized. This year too, there is a possibility of the illegal sale of the traditional varieties. We have started inspections in major wholesale cracker markets,” said a senior Delhi police officer.
On Thursday, wholesale cracker markets around central Delhi’s Sadar Bazar and Jama Masjid were raided to check for any illegal sale of the traditional varieties. In west Delhi, police found 146 kg crackers from a shopkeeper.
Although the “green crackers” (low-emission varieties) will be available in the market this time, very few traders have applied for licences to sell these varieties. Narendra Gupta, president, fireworks and general traders association, Sadar Bazar, said that in the wholesale cracker market out of the 80 regular sellers, only seven applied for licences this year.
“The sale will drop to 10% compared to the previous years. We have been facing this problem since the last three years. Last year, cracker sale was abruptly banned and this year there is limited availability,” Gupta said.
He also said that the police will begin licence distribution from October 7, with just 20 days to go for Diwali. However, since the effigies for Dussehra (on October 8) are prepared at least a few days ahead of the festival, there is a great chance that the crackers used in these figurines will be the traditional varieties.
“With such limitations, there will surely be an underground sale of the traditional varieties. The agencies should’ve at least provided licences in advance to prevent such illegal sale,” Gupta added.
Sellers around Jama Masjid also said that this time, police gave a window of only three days to apply for cracker sale licences. This could also be the reason for less number of applications.
“The police published the advertisement calling for applications on Friday last week, and the last day for it was Monday. Saturday and Sunday are bank holidays, because of which we could not complete the formalities of payment. Many could not apply,” said Gajendra Rawat, a seller in Old Delhi’s Jama Masjid.
In 2017, the apex court had put a temporary ban on sale and purchase of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR ahead of the festival. Last year, however, the SC had ordered that only low-emission and improved fireworks could be sold in Delhi, owing to concerns over rising air pollution.
