HYDERABAD: Buyers beware! Those colourful sparklers and flower pots you could be buying for Diwali could be beyond its date of expiry. Legal metrology officials, who carried out the inspections at several firecracker shops in the city, found that many firecrackers were being sold without mentioning their date of expiry. A total of 90 cases were booked against erring shops.
“A lot of shops selling firecrackers are not mentioning manufacturing and expiry dates. Many of them could just be repackaging old items as new, which is illegal according to the Package Commodities Act,” said U Vimal Babu, Deputy Controller, Legal Metrology. Officials also said that some shops were flouting pricing norms by not mentioning maximum retail price (MRP) and address of the manufacturer.
Metrology Department officials also swooped down on sweet shops in the city, booking as many as 170 cases during the day. The shops were found to be using inaccurate measures and weights. Some shops were found to be adding the weight of the box while weighing the sweets before selling them. “For packaged commodities, the exact net weight is not matching what’s mentioned on its label,” said Vimal Babu.