Meet Hayer: In Punjab, only green fire crackers are permitted during Diwali

According to Punjab Environment Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, the National Green Tribunal, the Supreme Court, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change have all issued directives that the state government is promoting the use of green crackers.

As the holidays of Diwali, Gurpurab, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve approach, he said, the Department of Science, Technology, and Environment is only allowing green crackers that do not include barium salt or compounds of antimony, lithium, mercury, arsenic, lead, or strontium chromate.

On Diwali (from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.), Gurpurab (from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. and from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.), Christmas (from 11.55 p.m. to 12.30 a.m.), and New Year’s Eve (from 11.55 p.m. to 12.30 a.m.), Meet Hayer said that only green crackers may be shot.

The manufacture, distribution, storage, sale, and use of firecrackers, or bundles of crackers together, are prohibited under state law. Only authorized vendors will be able to sell firecrackers.

Meet Hayer claims that no internet merchant, including Flipkart or Amazon, would export crackers from Punjab.

The Punjab Pollution Control Board will carry out interim monitoring in a few selected cities. Meet Hayer threatened to take immediate legal action for violating the rules and promised that the police would ensure that only green firecrackers with the proper permits were sold and used in the right places at the right times.