Ahead of this Diwali, the Aam Aadmi Party Government declared a complete ban on the production, storage, sale, and use of all varieties of firecrackers till 1st January 2023.
“To protect the people of Delhi from the risk of pollution a complete ban has been imposed on the production, storage, sale, and the use of all types of firecrackers, in order to save their lives” the Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai informed. “The ban on online sale and delivery of the firecrackers will be enforced till 1st January 2023”, the Minister tweeted additionally. To ensure the strict imposition of the ban, an action plan will be formulated in association with the Delhi Police, Delhi Pollution Control Committee, and Revenue Department, the Minister announced.
BJP-the opposition party in Delhi State Assembly criticized the AAP government by marking the latter’s decision as “hurting the sentiments of Hindus”. Parvesh Singh Verma of Delhi-BJP lambasted the Delhi government for its spending on meetings and advertisements to curb pollution in the city. Another BJP leader Kapil Mishra called the move an indulgence in “Muslim appeasement” ahead of Gujarat polls.
Earlier in 2020, Indian Social Responsibility Network (ISRN), a Delhi-based NGO, submitted a plea in NGT demanding a ban on the use of firecrackers in Delhi-NCR from 7th to 30th November. As per the plea of the NGO, high pollution could have affected the vulnerable groups more and argued that “Green Crackers” was not a complete remedy. Almost half of the total members of the governing body of ISRN are close associates of the BJP. Om Prakash Saklecha is BJP-MLA from Madhya Pradesh, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe is BJP Rajya Sabha MP and heads the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Sumit Bhasin is one of the directors at the Public Policy Research Center (PPRC) and was a member of the BJP Social Media Committee for 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Mallika Nadda is the wife of BJP National President J. P Nadda, Lalitha Kumaramangalam is a BJP politician and formerly headed the National Commission for Women (NCW). Later on 9th November 2020, the NGO passed the responsibility of the plea solely on Shri Santosh Gupta, one of the functionaries of ISRN, on Twitter and shaded off its association with the plea.
The studies conducted by IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur in 2022 and 2016 respectively listed the reasons for rising air pollution in the city. IIT Delhi’s report titled as “ Chemical speciation and source apportionment of ambient PM2.5 in New Delhi before, during, and after the Diwali fireworks”, claimed that- Not fireworks but biomass burning drives poor air quality in Delhi post-Diwali. IIT-Kanpur’s study titled “Comprehensive Study on Air Pollution and GreenHouse Gases (GHGs) in Delhi” highlighted vehicular emission, secondary particles from industries and power plants, and biomass burning as the major contributory sources of air pollution during winters.
