The Tamil Nadu government appealed to the people to celebrate a noiseless, smoke free, green and safe Deepavali with families, relatives, friends and neighbors. Let us celebrate this Deepavali, as a festival of light in an environment friendly manner rather than bursting noise and smoke emitting crackers”, a statement issued by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) said.
Deepavali is one of the important festivals celebrated by people of the country. During Deepavali along with wearing of new clothes and distribution of sweets, bursting of crackers and colour ful lights have become customary for many generations to show the happiness.”However, bursting of fire crackers has severe deleterious effects on our health llike causing deafness, both temporary and permanent, depending on the intensity ofnois they generate. It also causes land, water and air pollution and ultimately impact the environment”, it said.In this regard, a Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Supreme Court with a request to ban the production and sale of crackers. The Court in its Judgment dated October 23, 2018 had directed the manufacturesto make the crackers by using the raw materials that will reduce the emission level, besides directing them to manufacture and sell the green crackers in future.
The Court also directed to create adequate awareness on the pollutionof air due to bursting of crackers and to encourage the community fire cracking at particular period of time.Based on this, the Tamil Nadu Government since 2018 have permittedthe people to burst crackers between 6.00 AM to 7.00 AM and 7.00 PM to 8.00 PM.Similarly this year also the Government have permitted to burst crackers between 6.00 AM to 7.00 AM and 7.00 PM to 8.00 PM., it saidFurther considering the significance and the harmfulness caused due tothe bursting of crackers to the environment and health of the people andto protect the environment, the TNPCB every year has been taking various follow-up actions in this regard.