Maheshtala: 200 manufacturers attend green firecracker training workshop

Maheshtala: Minister of state for transport, Dilip Mondal, hopes that the 15-bigha land identified for developing a cluster for green cracker manufacturing at Nandarampur in Maheshtala can be promoted as a model cluster for the entire state.

He appealed to all the firecracker manufacturers to support the development of the cluster.

“The development of the cluster for manufacture of green firecrackers is the brain child of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Over 1.5 lakh people across the state are directly associated with the manufacturing of firecrackers and the state government is committed to safeguard the livelihood of the people associated with this industry,” Mondal said while addressing a state-level workshop on safety measures for small-scale green fireworks industry, at Maheshtala, in South 24 Parganas, on Wednesday ahead of the hands-on training that commenced from Thursday.

CSIR NEERI (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute), at the request of state MSME department, is providing training in the manufacture of green fire crackers to 200 odd manufacturers at Jhowtala area under Maheshtala police station from Thursday to Sunday.

In 2017, the Supreme Court had banned crackers due to high pollution following which NEERI was assigned with the responsibility for developing new formulations which can curb pollution. As per the latest order by the apex court, only green crackers approved by NEERI can be used.

“Green firecrackers involve a mixture of some chemicals and addition of special additives into it which reduces particulate matter in the air and hence the harmful effect on health is decreased to a reasonable extent.

The present formulation that we have developed can reduce pollution by 30 to 35 per cent. Research is on to further decrease it,” Sadhana Rayalu, chief scientist from NEERI, who will be heading the training, said.

In 2018, there were only 100 manufacturers who were using NEERI formulations across the country which has gone up to 1,200 now.

“We have plans to develop infrastructure for storage of 50,000 kg green firecrackers in the cluster that will be developed,” Sukdev Naskar of Pradesh Atasbazi Byabsayee Samity said.

Around 10 lakh people are directly and indirectly dependent on the fire cracker industry in the country that has an annual turnover of Rs 6,000 to 8,000 crore.