If West Bengal chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi had his way, green fireworks emitting noise up to 125 decibel could be allowed in the state like the rest of the country. Bengal, at present, bars anything above 90 decibel.
Dwivedi expressed his opinion during a meeting held at Nabanna on Tuesday that was attended by senior officials of the state government, MSME officials, the environment department, the state PCB, district magistrate, director-general of police and representatives of fireworks associations. The meeting was organised following the death of 14 persons in explosions at illegal fireworks units in the state recently.
The Plurals is in possession of a screenshot message doing the rounds in a WhatsApp group of fireworks manufacturers. The message read “Today’s meeting was very successful … the noise limit has changed from 90 to 125 decibel, announced the chief secretary.” The WhatsApp message also has photographs of the meeting. The Plurals has not checked the veracity of the message.
The chief secretary could not be contacted for comment, but a senior state government official said, on condition of anonymity, that the chief secretary had asked why fireworks with a 125-decibel noise limit should not be allowed in the state. At least two other persons present at the meeting confirmed this. “Yes, the chief secretary had spoken about a 125-decibel noise limit (for crackers) in West Bengal,” said Subhankar Manna, a representative of a fireworks association, who was present at the meeting.
“I have heard that the chief secretary had made a comment about a 125-decibel count,” admitted a senior environment department official.
Some time ago, West Bengal environment minister Manas Bhunia and state PCB chairman Kalyan Rudra had announced that only green fireworks with sound limit up to 90 decibel would be allowed in West Bengal and passed the same directive to the National Environmental Engineering Institute, the scientific agency directed by Supreme Court to prepare the green fireworks formulations, as per several judicial directives. Nationally, the 125-decibel limit is allowed but as per the Central Environment Act, states can tighten their permissible limits. A few years ago, under a National Green Tribunal order, the state PCB had formed an expert committee which reiterated the continuation of the 90-decibel limit after a detailed scientific study.
“Neither the chief secretary nor the PCB can change the limit without concurrence of the judiciary as the limit has been ratified by the court. If such an effort is made, we will go back to court,” said Biswajit Mukherjee, former chief law officer of the PCB and state environment department.
“Let the chief secretary first stop these unfortunate incidents of explosions at illegal fireworks units, he may then think about changing the decibel limit, which has been cleared by judiciary,” said Naba Dutta, secretary of green platform Sabuj Mancha.
Decisions taken
Several decisions were taken at the meeting to ensure how the livelihood of thousands of workers at fireworks units could be saved. However, nothing was discussed about what measures should be taken to check the mushrooming of illegal firework units in the state as per the NGT order passed in 2015.
It was decided that the state government would fund training for manufacturing green fireworks; several dedicated warehouses would be constructed to store fireworks in every district, especially in South 24-Parganas. Fireworks associations were asked to identify land to create manufacturing clusters, a decision taken by the state cabinet recently. It was also decided that senior government officials would visit Sivakasi to see how the clusters there have been set up.
“However, it still remains unclear as to what should be done to stop the growth of illegal firework units,” said an official. Incidentally, after the spate of explosions in fireworks units recently, police have swung into action and confiscated close to 1.5 lakh ton fireworks and ingredients from several parts of the state and arrested many.
At the meeting, a representative of the fireworks association threatened to initiate protest rallies, including rail roko, if reported police “atrocities” continue.