25,000 firecrackers confiscated

According to a state government notification,the use and display of fireworks in public thoroughfare is punishable under law. Crackers and fireworks producing noise more than 90 decibels at a distance of five metre from the point of bursting are totally banned.

The raid was conducted following a tip-off after the recent confiscation of 600 kg of banned crackers by the Kolkata police. The firecrackers were traced to Nilgunj.

According to Chief Law Environment Officer Biswajit Mukherjee,there was information about dumping of illegal crackers from Tamil Nadu at the godowns.

“We had conducted the raid after a tip-off. With the help of police we seized large quantities of firecrackers which are banned. When we started our raids many small shops downed their shutters,” said Debashish Chakraborty,a senior scientist of WBPCB,who was with the team.

According to experts,usually the banned firecrackers are supplied from Champahati and Lungi in South 24-Parganas. A lot of them are also smuggled from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu.

Recently one of the largest fire cracker manufacturing associations of Tamli Nadu had even appealed to the Supreme Court to be allowed to sell crackers above 90 decibels in Bengal. But the appeal was turned down.

Sources in WBPCB said that the Supreme Court order would be passed onto all the municipalities of the state.

“There have been all sorts of noisy-crackers from chocolate bombs and dodomas to chain crackers and sound rockets. We have started the raid from today and would be inspecting other places,including Bazi Bazar,” said a senior WBPCB officer.

In a bid to make people aware about noise pollution the state environment department has already sent notices to councillors of 125 municipalities who will organise camps before the Kali Puja.

Immersion report to highlight municipality-port trust tussle

The state environment department is preparing a report on the status of idol immersion during the Durga Puja. The report will be submitted to the High Court when it reopens after Lakshmi puja. Though the state government has claimed that the work of maintaining the Hooghly banks has been done in a better manner this time,the issue of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) being at loggerheads would feature in the report.

Following several reports and studies,the Central Pollution Control Board had maintained that the immersion of idols in Ganga leads to river pollution. After a lot of deliberations,the Centre issued certain guidelines which were imposed on the municipalities for the immersion. It was also decided that a monitoring committee will be formed at the Central and the state level each year to evaluate the work of municipalities and other civic bodies entrusted with the responsibility of keeping the ghats clean during immersion.

During the clean-up act,it has been seen more often than not the KMC and the KoPT try to shift the onus of maintaining the ghats onto each other. This has often led to incomplete and unsatisfactory work. While KMC has blamed the KoPT since the area is under its jurisdiction,the KoPT has claimed it was the KMC’s responsibility since it is the civic body. “We will be submitting a report to the High Court which contains details of work done this time and what had gone wrong,” said Biswajit Mukerjee,chief law environment officer. ENS