Two out of three fireworks manufacturers and traders in Budge Budge and Maheshtala, in South 24-Parganas, the biggest hub of fireworks manufacturing and trading in Bengal, did not apply to set up shops to sell fireworks before Kali Puja because of the lack of locally made green crackers.
Many of these traders said procuring green crackers from places like Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu and selling them here did not make business sense for them.
“Although there are around 800 fireworks manufacturers and traders in Maheshtala and Budge Budge, according to a recent list prepared by the local administration with the help of police, around 250 have applied and around 150 units have so far got clearances to set up shop,” said a representative of local administration.
The local fireworks association said the absence of locally made legal fireworks has made the majority reluctant to apply as they cannot afford to procure costlier Sivakasi fireworks.
“In our area, most have not applied for setting up shop as they do not have green fireworks to sell. Normally, these people sell locally made cheaper fireworks but the government has allowed only a handful of the units to manufacture green fireworks. There are three such licenced units in Maheshtala and Budge Budge now. Hence, there are hardly any local green fireworks,” said Sukdeb Naskar, secretary of the Pradesh Atasbazi Byabsayi Samity.
“A section of big firework traders, who can readily procure fireworks from places like Sivakasi are killing off the local industry; several small fireworks manufacturers and traders have complained to the chief minister,” said another fireworks trader.
Santanu Dutta of Burrabazar Fireworks Association, which has recently started the Bazi Bazar near Shahid Minar, said: “Overall Sivakasi imported fireworks are dominating the market.”
Subhankar Manna of Tala Bazi Bazar said “around 95 per cent of the fireworks this year have come from Sivakasi”.
During a coordination meeting at the Police Training School few days back, a local fireworks trader complained to a representative of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) that most of the Sivakasi fireworks had fake QR codes,
NEERI was mandated by the Supreme Court in 2018 to prepare QR codes for valid green fireworks which should be affixed on all packets.
“A couple of weeks ago we went to Sivakasi and found that many of the manufacturers are printing QR codes prepared by them rather than using the NEERI-produced QR codes as mandated by the court. All these fireworks are showing ‘invalid’ while testing with the NEERI app,” a trader told the meeting.