A section of fireworks manufacturers urged the Centre to revoke ban on use of barium nitrate in fireworks manufacturing and relaxation for making low denomination chain crackers.
Representatives of Sivakasi Sparklers Manufacturers' Association and Sivakasi Fireworks Manufacturers' Association also wanted fixation of emission standards on fireworks products by an expert committee.
The Supreme Court had ordered the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to study the harmful effects of fireworks and harmful chemicals used in its manufacturing. With no standards available to fix the 24-hour permissible exposure limit, Ambient Air Quality Criteria values (AAQCV) for various chemicals with CPCB and in developed countries, "CPCB followed a roundabout method to do to this and reduced the 8 hour exposure limits of metals by 125 times and arrived at 24 hour AAQCV for these metals," a memorandum of SIFMA said.
CPCB fixed the 24 hour AAQCV for Barium at 4 microgram/cubic metre, thereby 8 hour exposure limit of 500 microgram/cubic metre was drastically and incorrectly reduced to 4 microgram/cubic metre as 24 hour permissible exposure limit.
Subsequently, the Supreme Court was informed that on the day of Deepavali the emission of Barium from fireworks was about nine times the proposed standards and barium is used in fireworks only to give green colour. Consequently, the apex Court banned use of barium in manufacture of fireworks on October, 28 2018.
Barium nitrate is an important oxidiser for all types of light emitting fireworks and sparklers and not simply colouring agent as conveyed to the Supreme Court, SIFMA said. Pointing out that Supreme Court in October 2018, had reduced time of bursting of crackers to 2 hours, SIFMA said that it was highly unlikely that every consumer would use only barium-containing fireworks throughout the 2 hours. The standard fixed by the committee can be valid if emission was occurring throughout the 24 hours and in reality it occurs only for 2 hours.
Besides, the ban on manufacture of chain crackers by Supreme Court led to even banning even the lowest denomination of chain crackers containing small 28 wala chorsa. Consequently, 80% of the fireworks manufacturers got eliminated and fireworks production has come down to 10% in 30% of the factories, making them to work at near closure level causing unbearable financial losses to the manufacturers.
Murali Asaithambi of SIFMA and R. Vijaykant, Additional Secretary, SISMA and its advisors, PCG Asok Kumar, S. Ravi and S. Srinivasan, met Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal and senior officers in this regard in Delhi recently.
