A furtive industrial espionage game has turned India’s experiment with green firecrackers into a dud. The result: Green firecrackers are a rarity and require a willingness to hunt for them through different cracker shops in the city.
“Green firecrackers are supposed to cause 30% less pollution than the conventional ones. The manufacturers are coordinating with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (Neeri) for developing them,” informs S.M. Kulkarni of Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), the apex body that was earlier known as the Department of Explosives. The manufacturers are getting the approval for crackers from Chief Controller of Explosives, but with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that effectively keeps the cracker know-how to a small club of manufacturers.
It is not just the rollout of green firecrackers, but the overall confusion about the ruling of the Supreme Court that has spooked the market. “There is no ban on firecrackers. The SC ruling was to push for green crackers and limit the time for burning crackers between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. It has also banned series crackers or garland crackers known as lari, which go off one after the other,” informs the PESO official. The confusion about green crackers is on display at the cracker shops that have cropped up all over the city. “Show me the cracker box with the green label. The one by Standard. The navichakra or anar,” the manager of Vishnu Fireworks tells his shophand. After searching for a few minutes, a small colourful box ‘anar’ (flowerpot) is brought out which has a green sticker with approvals from the PESO, CSIR and NEERI. The chemical composition on the box shows aluminium, Barium Nitrate and Dextrin. Barium Nitrate was the specific chemical banned by the Supreme Court in 2018 as the fumes produced during its combustion are toxic.
“The awareness about green crackers is limited as the range is minimal. Most shoppers here prefer to buy what they have been using over the years. But we are not having the kind of business that we usually have around this time,” says the manager of the shop as a drizzle continues outside his shop at Balkampet.
