Members of citizen activist groups The Compassionate City and PACT (Public Health Action) have written to Home Minister G. Parameshwara urging him to take more steps to successfully implement the ban on non-green firecrackers ahead of Deepavali, the month of Karthika, Christmas, and New Year celebrations.
They have suggested that along with regular monitoring by station house officers (SHOs) of the Police Department and the Fire and Emergency Services, more diligence needs to be done while issuing licences to cracker manufacturers. They have also suggested that the Transport Department should track illegal inter-State transportation of non-green crackers.
The members of the groups have also advocated a crackdown on illegal cracker sales, police training and awareness across all stations, putting up green cracker awareness and safety norm posters at police stations and on Hoysala patrolling vehicles, awareness through phone helplines and social media, and training Hoysala and Cheetah police teams, among other things.
They have also said that residents’ welfare associations and apartment associations should ensure that safety norms are followed in their societies while help should be arranged for the elderly, ill, children, asthmatics, and COVID-compromised people, and animals.
In the backdrop of the recent accident at a firecracker shop at Attibele in which 17 people lost their lives, the members have stressed upon the need to enhance safety norms around crackers.
“The Attibele accident should never be allowed to repeat in any part of Karnataka. There is a loss of confidence around safety since there are very limited measures to execute the Supreme Court guidelines. We hope this year will be different and the citizens will have a green and a happy Deepavali,” they said in the letter.
