The day is not far off when international trade organisations would blacklist Sivakasi, in southern Tamil Nadu, popularly known as the fireworks capital of India, for poor safety measures and bad business practices, warns an international expert on disaster management and laws.
Sivakasi saw 10 deaths in a span of 10 days in April this year due to explosions in cracker making units. The district saw a total of 16 workers getting charred to death in fire cracker units during January to April.
Seven persons were charred to death last Sunday in a major explosion in one of the firecracker units in Sivakasi. last decade (2003 to 2013) saw 282 persons getting killed in accidents at various cracker units in Sivakasi which are run as a cottage industry.
“The statistics say 186 fatal accidents were reported from Sivakasi during the last 10 years. The figures do not augur well for Sivakasi,” the disaster management expert told The Pioneer.
The explosions were caused as a result of violation of all safety rules and regulations prescribed by the Explosives Act 1884 and Explosives Rules 2008, according to AP Singh, deputy chief controller of explosives, Sivakasi. What stands out is the fact that the explosion occurred in the cracker factory owned by SS Vijayakumar, president, Tamil Nadu Fireworks Manufacturers Association, the trade body controlling more than 700 fireworks units in Sivakasi and surrounding units. A State Government official compared the incident to the proverbial ‘fence eating the crops’.
Firework factories employ contract workers and children who do not have any knowledge about the materials they work with. Officials and manufacturers blame each other for frequent mishaps which assume the role of disasters. last year 49 workers died in Sivakasi in a explosion while 2011 saw 42 deaths.
“Rules and norms are being violated by the manufacturers themselves. Sunday’s incident could be due to the mixing of chemicals under the shadow of a tree. The rules state crackers should be made only in specially configured rooms,” he said.
But a manufacturer said official apathy and corruption are the major factors. “There were many instances in the past when we informed the officials about blatant violation of safety norms. The officials will approach the erring units and take money from them,” said one of the manufacturers.
K Pandyarajan, local MlA, had told this newspaper immediately after the 2012 blast that claimed 49 lives that most accidents occur during the period from July to December. “The factories work overtime to meet the requirements of the festival season. Exhaustion of the workers and poor safety measures lead to major accidents,” he had told. “If the situation in lean months like April itself is like what happened on April 28, Sivakasi could be a ticking time bomb which would explode not once but many times in the coming months, warned the disaster expert.
The Sivakasi mishap came immediately after the CAG blamed both the Central and State Governments for their unpreparedness and lethargy in facing disasters of any kind. Vinod Rai’s report to Parliament states that there are critical gaps in the preparedness level for various disasters and the National Disaster Management Authority, headed by the PM is “ineffective” in its functioning.
The CAG was scathing in its criticism over the functioning of the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) in Tamil Nadu which has not met even once after it was constituted in 2008.