Lawyer moves NGT seeking designated place for fire-crackers

New Delhi: A lawyer Thursday moved the National Green Tribunal against the environmental hazard caused by use of fire-crackers during festivals like Diwali and sought the creation of designated time and places for bursting them.

The plea moved by advocate and environment activist Piyush Singh said there is severe impact of fire-crackers on the environment and causes air and noise pollution.

Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Petroleum And Explosives Safety Organisation and Chief Controller of Explosives have been made parties in the case.

A bench headed by Justice U D Salvi, which did not issue notice to the respondents, fixed the matter for next hearing on September 28.

Singh has contended in his plea that the chemicals released into the environment due to bursting of crackers caused negative effects on the health and "every individual especially children, pregnant women and old people are at an increased risk of suffering health complications due to it".

The petition has also referred to a Supreme Court judgement which said "In no religious text book it is written that Diwali has to be celebrated by bursting crackers. Diwali is considered as a festival of lights, not of noise."

"Ensure that fireworks and firecrackers are customarily burst by earmarking a place and time wherein all the people can come together and witness or view a show of fireworks dispensing with the need of crackers being burst in the residential areas," the petition said while seeking prohibition of manufacture, sale and use of firecrackers.

"The excessive, non-mindful and unsupervised use of firecrackers is adversely affecting the eco-system and thus there is substantial question relating to environment, wherein the community at large is affected by the environmental consequences, which needs to be decided by this Tribunal," the plea, filed through Piyush Singh and Aditya Parolia, said.