Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court, on Friday directed the state government, local bodies and the police department to make sure that only the ‘Green crackers’ are sold and burst during Diwali festival, specifically keeping in mind the Corona pandemic.
The state government submitted a modified order clearly stating that packing of green crackers will have a logo of CSIR-NEERI and PESCO as well as QR Coding system.
A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty passed the order during the hearing of PILs filed by AS Vishnu Bharath, a resident of the city and another to ban all kinds of crackers and implement regulations to prevent noise pollution.
The bench asked the government to give wide publicity in the media about the green crackers immediately so that the general public is aware about the same.
The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), police must attend immediately to the complaints from public regarding noise pollution, the bench said adding that decibel meters should be made available with the police in bigger cities like Bengaluru, so that noise level can be measured in densely populated areas .
Green crackers are manufactured as per the formulation developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – National Environmental and Engineering Research Institute Lab and product approval for the new formulation is given by Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation which is under the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministries of Commerce and Industries, Government of India.
QR Code is a novel feature incorporated on the firecrackers to avoid manufacture and sale of counterfeit products.
The court had, on Thursday, while hearing a petition filed by Dr CA A S Vishnu Bharath challenging the state government order dated November 6 and November 10 allowing use of only green firecrackers during Deepavali between 8 pm to 10 pm, had observed that order is ineffective as the state has not bothered to lay down what is the meaning of green crackers.
The hearing on the same case was then held on Friday.
