With the festival of lights Deepavali fast approaching, the sale of fire crackers is all set to pick up in the coming days.
The district administration and the city police have granted licence to shop owners to sell crackers, besides driving home the safety-related measures they need to put in place at their respective establishments.
For its part, the Fire and Rescue Services Department here has obtained written undertaking from the cracker shop owners and dealers this year too making it clear that they would neither sell nor store Chinese fire crackers in their respective outlets.
A prescribed format was prepared and circulated to the cracker shop owners and wholesale dealers across the central region encompassing eight districts through the field level personnel of the Fire and Rescue Services Department to obtain the written undertaking.
As per the format, the shopkeepers and dealers have given an undertaking to the respective District Fire Officer assuring that they had not stocked Chinese crackers and would not sell them in their respective outlet.
Fire fighters said licences had been granted to nearly 160 cracker shops in Tiruchi district alone of which around 90 of them were in Tiruchi Corporation limits alone.
The district administration had granted licence to cracker shops functioning in Tiruchi Rural limits, while the City Police grants licence to those functioning within the Corporation limits, said official sources.
A senior Fire and Rescue Services Department official said written undertaking on not selling or stocking Chinese crackers had been obtained from over 140 shop owners and dealers in Tiruchi district alone.
Special squad comprising revenue, fire and police personnel would carry out sudden checks at the crackers shops in the run up to the Deepavali festival, the official said.
The Tiruchi fire fighters have come out with short videos running for few seconds in view of the Deepavali festival to create awareness among people on preventing accidents while bursting crackers and remaining cautious.
Teams of fire fighters armed with necessary paraphernalia and fire fighting vehicle would be deployed at vantage spots in the city on the eve of Deepavali and on the day of the festival to rush to fire accident spot to put out the flames.
