State sets ball rolling to regularise 350 manufacturing units
kolkata: The firecracker industry based at Nungi- Chingripota area in South 24-Paraganas—the biggest in the state has set the ball rolling for regularising the 350-odd manufacturing units in the area.
Presently only 16 units of which eight are based in South 24-Parganas have the license of manufacturing green crackers from NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute).
"We have identified a 25-acre land at Nandarampur area where we will be forming clusters of all these 350-odd units. The state government will provide the necessary infrastructure and training will be provided on the manufacturing of green crackers so that these units get the necessary manufacturing license. We are hopeful that the cluster will start functioning by the year 2025-26," Sukdev Naskar, secretary of Pradesh Atasbazi Byabasayee Samity.
Among the 16 units that have received a license from NEERI for the manufacture of green crackers, 8 are in South 24-Parganas, 3 in Howrah, 2 each in Nadia and Hooghly and one in North 24-Parganas.
The Pradesh Atasbazi Byabasayee Samity in July had brought some 40-odd manufacturing units across the state for hands-on training on the manufacture of green crackers from scientists of NEERI.Hands-on training in respect of more than a dozen firecrackers was taken up at the workshop. NEERI has developed new formulations for flower pots without the use of barium nitrate in presence of additives with a consequent reduction in emissions.
A few months after the training workshop, the samples manufactured by the units were sent to NEERI for approval and 16 got the nod.
"We received a license from NEERI just a little over a month ago. So the production has been small this year and we have to depend mostly on imports from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu," a shopowner at Nungi said.
In 2019, there was a business worth Rs 200 crore when there were restrictions on use of sound crackers over 60 decibel. In 2020 and 2021 there was virtually no business due to Covid restrictions. "This time we are expecting business worth Rs 100 crore," Naskar added.A division bench of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the state police and state Pollution Control Board (PCB) to ensure that only green environment-friendly fire crackers bearing QR code are sold. In South 24-Parganas alone 60,000-odd people are directly dependent on firecrackers for eking out a living. In Nungi–Chingripota belt this figure is 12,000.
