Punjab limits use of firecrackers to two hours on Diwali, Gurpurb

Tribune News Service
Faridkot/Patiala, October 26

The Punjab government has announced a new policy to strictly regulate the sale and use of firecrackers this Diwali—a measure that state officials hope will limit pollution levels in the state as the festival season progresses.

A new order issued by the state government to regulate the use of fireworks in an attempt to bring down pollution levels has prohibited sales of non-green firecrackers—fireworks that use pollution causing agents like barium salts or compounds of antimony, lithium, mercury arsenic, lead, or strontium, and chromate in its production.

The new order also banned the distribution, stock, sale, and use of ‘laaris’, or clustered firecrackers.

In Jalandhar and Mandi Gobindgarh, however, the sale and distribution of all kinds of firecrackers have been banned from the midnight of October 28-29 to the midnight of December 31-January 1. The ban comes on the back of an order from the National Green Tribunal orders after air quality plummeted in these towns in November 2020.

The rest of the state must strictly adhere to a fixed time limit for using firecrackers—fireworks must be limited to two hours on Diwali, from 8 pm to 10 pm; on Gurpurb (November 19) from 4 am to 5 am and later from 9 pm to 10 pm; on Christmas and New Year’s Eve between 11.55 pm and 12.30 am.

The order also bans e-commerce websites, including Flipkart and Amazon, from selling fireworks online.

The new order appears somewhat at odds with a November 2019 order of the National Green Tribunal, which called for a complete ban on the sale and use of all kinds of fireworks in cities with poor ambient air.