In a first, Hoogly manufacturers will receive training on green firecrackers

Kolkata: The firecracker manufacturers from Hooghly district, for the first time, will be receiving training on the manufacture of green fire crackers from CSIR NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute) on Monday and Tuesday. 50 odd manufacturers will be a part of the two-day training programme at Mansatala area.

The directorate of micro, small and medium enterprises of Bengahad had written to NEERI requesting them to provide training to the cracker manufacturers in view of the Supreme Court directive that said no firecrackers should be used apart from the green ones. After the training in Hooghly, the NEERI team led by its chief scientist Sadhana Rayalu will be imparting a hands-on training from July 26-30 at Jhowtala area in South 24 Parganas.

Representatives from 200 manufacturing units will be joining the five-day training programme in batches. The inaugural programme that will be held at Batanagar Sports Club which is expected to be attended by Dilip Mondal, minister of state transport department, Rajesh Pandey, principal secretary of state MSME department, Rayalu from NEERI, to name a few, Sukdev Naskar of Pradesh Atasbazi Byabsayee Samity said. NEERI, in December last year, had provided hands-on training in production of green crackers at Nandarampur village in South 24 Parganas. 100 odd manufacturers from different parts of the state — namely Howrah, Hooghly, Midnapore and different parts of South 24 Parganas joined the session. NEERI has developed new formulations without use of barium nitrate in the presence of additives with reduction in emissions as there has been litigation regarding use of barium nitrate in manufacturing of firecrackers.

“There should be efforts by the government to increase the primary and basic infrastructure for production by giving legal sanctions to small manufacturers for the production activities of green crackers. It will help in tackling the problem of scarcity of green crackers.

The people should be made aware of the benefits of green crackers too to mitigate the problem of air pollution,” environmental

scientist Swati Nandy Chakraborty said.