VIJAYAWADA: The city of Vijayawada was lit with beautiful diyas on the occasion of Diwali on Wednesday. While some people celebrated the festival lighting diyas and making colourful rangolis, others burst firecrackers, flouting Supreme Court’s order to restrict the bursting of firecrackers to two hours.
According to city police, most people went against the order and started bursting firecrackers before 8 pm and continued till after 10 pm.
To the disappointment of district officials and police department officials, who tried to implement the order across the State, many people were seeing bursting crackers even on Thursday. Meanwhile, traders of firecrackers made a good amount of money by setting up as many as 80 stalls at Swaraj Maidan grounds, especially because of the ban imposed on online sale of crackers, in spite of the sale having started a little later than last year.
Speaking to TNIE, Chalasani Raghuram, a firecracker trader, said, “We were worried initially as the sale started only two days before the festival. But we have earned profit as the online sale of crackers was banned.”“We could have earned a little more if the sale started a few days earlier rather than just a few days before Diwali,” she added.