NEW DELHI: To reduce air pollution, which peaks during the winter, the AAP-led Delhi government on Monday announced a complete ban on the production, sale, and use of firecrackers until January 1, 2025.
The ban is valid on all types of firecrackers.
Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said the Delhi Police, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), and the Revenue Department will ensure strict enforcement of the ban.
Rai said that the ban is necessary to mitigate the seasonal air pollution surge worsened by firecrackers.
“Like the last year, this time also a complete ban is being imposed on the production, storage, sale and use of all types of firecrackers. There will also be a complete ban on online delivery or sale of any kind of firecrackers,” Rai stated.
The air quality in the Capital reaches hazardous levels in the winter due to vehicular pollution, stubble burning, low wind speed and geographical location.
“To control pollution, the government is preparing a winter action plan based on 21 focus points. In the coming days, various campaigns will be run accordingly,” the minister said.
He urged the residents to help the government in reducing the pollution levels. “If every citizen becomes a pollution warrior and takes the lead to save the environment, then we will be able to save people from the danger,” Rai said.
The minister also urged the people to celebrate Diwali by lighting diyas and distributing sweets, rather than bursting crackers.
Every year, Delhi faces a public health crisis in the run-up to and during most of the winter season. The crisis begins with the emanation of farm fires in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, where farmers set fire to hundreds of square kilometres of paddy fields after harvesting them to clear them of residue, causing a smog jacket to form over northern India, particularly Delhi.
What exacerbates this crisis is the fact that this period also coincides with Diwali, and the emissions from firecrackers, combined with the emanation from the farm fires, often leads to a drastic deterioration of the Capital’s air, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) climbing past 400 and even 450, to reach pollution levels of “severe” and “severe-plus”.
According to the AQI scale, a level of 1-50 is ‘good’, 51-100 is ‘satisfactory’, 101-200 is ‘moderate’, 201-300 is ‘poor’, 301-400 is ‘very poor’ and 401-500 is ‘severe’ category. An air quality of more than 501 is in an ‘emergency’ zone.
The Delhi government first banned firecrackers in 2017, when the Supreme Court asked whether a ban on bursting crackers in the Capital would impact the air quality. Subsequently, the Supreme Court in 2018 banned all conventional firecrackers in Delhi-NCR and has allowed only green crackers without barium salts to be burst in the region.
However, due to difficulty in differentiating between green and conventional crackers, the government has begun imposing a blanket ban on all firecrackers every winter season since 2020.