Within a day of allowing green firecrackers in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court was confronted with evidence of how the order was playing out. On Tuesday, the bench cited an HT report showing markets across the Capital selling every kind of cracker, “licensed, unlicensed, QR code, or no QR code”, and asked the Centre, the Delhi government and the police to act.
What HT found should give pause to anyone who believes Diwali pollution can be managed with a label. In
Within a day of allowing green firecrackers in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court was confronted with evidence of how the order was playing out. On Tuesday, the bench cited an HT report showing markets across the Capital selling every kind of cracker, “licensed, unlicensed, QR code, or no QR code”, and asked the Centre, the Delhi government and the police to act.
What HT found should give pause to anyone who believes Diwali pollution can be managed with a label. In Sadar Bazaar, conventional crackers came out from inside shops or from nearby warehouses on request. Many boxes carried no QR code. Others had codes too small to scan, or ones that led to sales catalogues rather than proof of certification. Vendors were taking home-delivery orders despite the ban on online sales. One shopkeeper summed up the market’s view: The public, he said, is least bothered whether a cracker is green.
That is the trouble with the green label. The scheme depends on buyers who check and inspectors who can tell the difference, and the markets suggest there are too few of either. Even genuine green crackers cut emissions by only30-40%, by the most generous estimate, so each one still releases most of the smoke of a conventional cracker. Allowing them where none were permitted adds to Delhi’s pollution, however much cleaner each cracker is.
The court had reasoned that the complete ban was widely flouted and had fed an illegal market in conventional crackers. It was also candid that it lacked adequate data to judge whether a full ban was the best answer. But a ban’s failure does not mean the label makes a difference. A legal sales window gives illicit stock a counter to sell from: The green box goes on display, but the conventional one comes out when asked for. Last year, the first Diwali in years with legal crackers, Delhi recorded its worst Diwali pollution peak since 2021, despite favourable weather.
The court’s direction to the authorities to act after HT’s report is welcome, but it may come too late to matter. Carts have lined Old Delhi’s lanes since October 20, even though the legal sales window opens on November 4. The legal bursting window is four days away. Confiscating conventional stock and prosecuting sellers across a city of this size, in four days, would test any police force.
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