1,400 cracker units in Sivakasi shut shop indefinitely to protest SC order

About 1,400 fireworks units in Sivakasi on Monday decided to shut down indefinitely, demanding lifting of the Supreme Court ban in October that restricts the time for bursting crackers.

Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Units Owners’ Association, a body of cracker manufacturers, claimed there has been a 60 per cent fall in the sale of firecrackers following the SC order.

Sivakasi, about 550 km from Chennai, produces nearly 95 per cent of the country’s crackers. The industry employs 800,000 to 1 million directly or indirectly and has an annual turnover of about Rs60 billion.

The decision to shut shops was taken in a meeting of the association, E Mariappan, the secretary of the body, said.

He said the industry, mostly comprising medium and small enterprises (MSEs) and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), had been affected severely by the SC order on the time restrictions and the ban on use of certain chemicals.

Mariappan said there was no such thing as “green crackers” and claimed that domestic crackers were much better than those produced in foreign countries.

The SC order banning the use of raw materials such as barium hydride in the manufacture of crackers would also affect the industry. He said a lot of people would have lost their jobs because of the ban.

Meanwhile, association representatives on Monday met state minister K T Rajendra Balaji, who represents Sivakasi in the assembly, and discussed the issue.

The association has already said that it is considering filing a review petition against the SC directive. Retail sales of Sivakasi firecrackers amount to over Rs100 billion a year. But sales have been plummeting in the last couple of years, owing to bans on firecrackers imposed by various courts. In 2017 and 2018, the industry lost nearly 50 per cent of its business after the Supreme Court prohibited the sale of crackers in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Industry experts said the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), on the advice of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has already explored the possibility for producing low-emission crackers. However, the firecrackers industry felt that the suggestions were not feasible. “The solution has to come from the industry and CSIR can be part of the research. Here, the CSIR was asking for royalty to use its invention, which is not viable for the fireworks industry,” Mariappan said.
He feels that even with intensive research, it would take at least four years to come up with zero- or low-emission crackers. One ingredient that has been tested to reduce emissions in fireworks is nitrocellulose.

However, the chemical becomes unstable after being exposed to the atmosphere for a while, making it unsuitable for use, he said.