The ban on the firecrackers might be lifted by the respective district administrations on the 1st of December, after reviewing the air quality of the districts.
Due to the deteriorating air quality in the state, the UP government officials have banned the sale and use of firecrackers in Lucknow and other districts across the cities. The ban is in motion since the midnight of November 9 and will be in place till the 30th of December, as per official reports. However, the sale and bursting of green crackers has been allowed in districts which have moderately better air quality.
Developed by the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), green crackers include flower pots, pencils, sparkles and chakkar. These crackers are environment-friendly and are developed to reduce air pollution that causes health hazards, specifically respiratory distress. The commonly used polluting chemicals like aluminium, barium, potassium nitrate and carbon, are usually removed or sharply reduced in green crackers to slow down the emissions by 15 to 30%.
The ban on the firecrackers might be lifted by the respective district administrations on the 1st of December, after reviewing the air quality of the districts. If the AQI of any of the districts across the state continues to remain on the lines of threatening, the ban will remain in place till further notice.
The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) has ventured into setting up 18 new Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) in eight cities of the state. 5 of these air quality monitoring stations will be seated in Agra, 1 each in Mathura and Firozabad, 2 each in Lucknow and Kanpur and 3 each in Varanasi and Prayagraj. Gorakhpur will also be on the receiving end of one such station. This move has been planned at a time when air pollution in different cities of the country are soaring at an all-time high pace.
