Supreme Court allows Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to decide timing for bursting firecrackers 

The Supreme Court.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has decided to ease the restrictions on timing for bursting firecrackers in states, such as Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The court has allowed the states to fix the timing, but not to exceed limit of two hours.

The court, on Tuesday, has also clarified that the order on use of environment-friendly firecrackers was limited to Delhi-NCR region only and not for pan-India.

The modification in the order was came after Tamil Nadu government objected the directions claiming the state will be celebrating Diwali on the morning of November 6 and considering people’s right to celebrate the festival, the court should extend the permitted timing for bursting of crackers.

Recently, the apex court had ordered the sale and manufacturing of only green firecrackers that are safe for environment to curb the rising pollution. It had also fixed the timing for bursting crackers, from 8pm to 10pm. The major online stores, Flipkart and Amazon are banned to sale crackers online. Similarly, there is also complete ban of series crackers.

According to the Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan, the green crackers may not be made available in the market in the time of festival. He has assured that the technology and procedure to make green crackers have been shared with the manufacturers. “We have pursued this with manufacturers, but we are also aware that this should not impact their livelihoods. So, it will be done in a phased manner,” he said.

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