Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Fireworks: new modalities soon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Officials of the Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO), formerly known as the Explosives Department, have launched initiatives to ensure safe conduct of fireworks display during the ensuing temple and church festivals in the State.

Controller of Explosives C.R. Surendranath, who is in charge of the PESO operations in the State, told The Hindu here that several meetings had been convened in Kochi in January to review the existing arrangements and work out new modalities in this regard.

Officials of the district administration in Palakkad and Thrissur have been invited to the first round of meeting tentatively fixed for January 9. Manufacturers of fireworks and office-bearers of various festival committees have also been invited.

“Our idea is to create awareness about the importance of adopting safety measures during the manufacture, storage and display of fireworks. The lives of the public and their own are at risk, if they do not adhere to the safety norms. The safety norms cannot be imposed arbitrarily all of a sudden. We will go step by step with this,” said Mr. Surendranath, who has taken over the post about two weeks.

Pointing out that sweeping changes are taking place across the world in the field of fireworks, he said ``our efforts will be to persuade them to change in tune with the changes. The practices adopted 25 years ago cannot be followed now as there is a drastic rise in population density all over. Several chemicals which were being used in the past had been banned and new ones which are less hazardous are being adopted in their place, all over the world.”

“Unless they adopt those changes they will be ejected out of the fireworks market. At present China, which had infused several innovations in the field of fireworks, has practically the monopoly over this market globally. If the Indian fireworks industry adopts those changes, it can capture a significant share of this market,” he said.

He said one of the basic constraints of the fireworks industry in India, particularly in Kerala, was that it worked in an unorganised manner. “People with hardly any expertise start and work in the industry here. They cannot invest much in ensuring strict safety norms. There is no research work going on here. This lacuna is likely to be overcome significantly if the proposed Explosive Research Centre becomes functional at Sivakasi. The PESO is setting up this facility there and its civil construction work is already over. It will be opened once the required manpower is deployed,” Mr. Surendranath said.

He said the PESO was also planning to convene a meeting of the dealers in high explosives in Thiruvananthapuram towards the end of next month to deal with the safety issues in that sector.

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