29th April 2014

Courtesy: Business Standard

Political bomb

The plight of the people engaged in the pyrotechnic business has become a political hot potato in poll season. All parties, with an eye on the votes, have taken up the issue in their political agendas. The Virudhunagar seat, under which the town falls, is considered an important constituency, having produced two chief ministers: P S Kumarasamy Raja and K Kamaraj. The Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency comprises the assembly segments of Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Aruppukottai and Sattur.

During his two-day campaign across six constituencies in Tamil Nadu last week, Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party-s prime ministerial candidate, came down heavily on the Centre for letting this fireworks units "die". Assuring the people at Sivakasi - Vaiko, president of the MDMK, an ally of BJP, is contesting from the seat - that if his party came to power he would help the cracker industry, he said, "Sivakasi has reached a stage where it is dying. The reasons are the hefty licence fees and the help being given to Chinese imports."

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa too has urged the Centre to immediately withdraw the notice on the new user fees, while asking the customs to more effectively check the smuggling of Chinese fireworks. In a letter to the prime minister, she wrote, "I am very surprised that the government of India went ahead with issuing such a sensitive policy order after the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls. Not only is this an act bereft of any understanding of the etiquette of parliamentary democracy, but it also constitutes a violation of the model code of conduct." She also said, "Chinese fireworks use the cheaper chlorate raw materials that are banned in India and so they not only affect domestic employment, but also represent serious safety and environmental hazards."

DMK-s candidate, S Rethinavelu, has also raked up the issue. Describing the import of Chinese crackers as a threat to the domestic industry, he said that he would fight tooth and nail for the Sivakasi cracker industry.

THE FIRE CRACKER INDUSTRY

Number of people it employs: 300,000
Number of legal units: 780
Number of illegal units: 700
Total value: Rs 3,000 crore
Growth: 10 per cent annually
Value of exports: Rs 150 crore
Value of the allied industry: Rs 1,500 crore
Value of imports from China: Rs 300 crore