VIRUDHUNAGAR: Cracker sales crossed turnover of more than `6,000 crore this Deepavali season in Virudhunagar district, marking a 10% decline compared to last year, according to manufacturers. Traders’ associations claim that sales witnessed a drop of between 20% and 40%, mainly due to illegal online sales, and added that many were struggling to recover their initial investments.
Sivakasi and its surrounding regions account for more than 80% of the country’s firecracker production. Speaking to TNIE, The Indian Fireworks Manufacturers Association president T Kannan said the turnover this season was estimated to be between Rs 6,000 crore and Rs 7,000 crore. However, he said the figure could have been higher if illegal production, including units manufacturing crackers by leasing licences, was taken into account.
He added that fancy crackers were in high demand this season. Meanwhile, Federation of Tamil Nadu Fireworks Traders president V Raja Chandrasekar said more than 12,000 shops operated across the state for Deepavali this year. Genuine traders faced a drop of around 20% to 40% in sales, mainly because of online sales, which have been banned by the Supreme Court, he said.
He further said the granting of temporary licences just three days ahead of Deepavali was another reason affecting regular traders. He also pointed out that many sellers offering crackers by the kilogram were cheating customers.
“The price of crackers cannot be fixed by weight, and those sellers increase the weight by using waste sheets and filling some cracker varieties with sand.
However, consumers do not realise this and, believing they are being offered low prices, get cheated,” he said. He added that with cracker prices increasing by about 20% to 30%, even selling the products at the price at which traders had invested had become a huge task.
Meanwhile, official sources said a total of 227.57 tonnes of waste was collected on Monday as part of special sanitation drives undertaken in Sivakasi Corporation and five municipalities in the district. Of the total, firecracker waste accounted for 43.90 tonnes, with Sivakasi alone generating 23.70 tonnes.
The remaining firecracker waste was collected from Virudhunagar (6 tonnes), Aruppukottai (4.70 tonnes), Srivilliputhur (4 tonnes), Sattur (3 tonnes) and Rajapalayam (2.50 tonnes). The overall waste collected included 89 tonnes of wet waste, 88.70 tonnes of dry waste, 2.05 tonnes of hazardous waste and 3.92 tonnes of special care waste, apart from the firecracker waste.
