Mumbai: Flouting cracker norms will be contempt of court, says BMC

A child carries a firecracker gun at Kalachowkie. Pic/Ashish Raje

The Bombay High Court has stated that citizens can burst firecrackers only between 7 pm and 10 pm in Mumbai during Diwali and instructed the civic body and police to ensure its order is followed, but as of Tuesday evening, ambiguity prevailed with regard to implementing the guideline.

Senior officials told mid-day that ward officials would do the monitoring while the latter said they were awaiting guidelines from headquarters. Meanwhile, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) won't slap citizens with fines for not adhering to the court's order but it will be a case of contempt of court, said an official.

Though the BMC has issued many guidelines, formed squads and started taking action, no restrictions on bursting crackers in the city were imposed by local authorities as well as the state government. On Monday, the high court set a three-hour window for bursting crackers.

Citizens shop for crackers at Masjid Bunder on October 16, 2022. Pic/Ashish Raje

A senior official of the civic environment department told mid-day that ward offices will monitor the bursting of firecrackers as per the court's orders. "We have sent them a copy of the court order. They will act accordingly. Each ward has teams ready which are now dealing with dust-mitigation guidelines," the official said.

Ward officials say

The assistant municipal commissioner of a ward told mid-day, on the condition of anonymity, that guidelines were awaited from the top brass. "We have appointed teams who are currently monitoring the implementation of dust-mitigation guidelines. It is not yet possible to say whether these teams will monitor complaints about the restrictions on firecrackers. Action will be taken after receiving guidelines from headquarters," the official said.

An assistant municipal commissioner who holds charge of a ward office in the eastern suburbs said, "Yes, we have received a copy of the court order. But we are waiting for guidelines from headquarters.

According to the court order, the local police station must also take action, so we will discuss it with them also. Our dust-mitigation teams are already at work. Each team has a vehicle to conduct vigilance in the ward. We will decide the course of action after receiving the guidelines."

Sudhakar Shinde, additional municipal commissioner, said, "The ward offices will see that everyone will adhere to the high court order. There are 95 squads across the city at the ward level that can monitor the bursting of crackers." He added that there won't be any fines if someone burst crackers before or after the allotted time but it would be a case of contempt of court.

Civic body's measures

Civic chief I S Chahal will hold a meeting on dust mitigation on Wednesday. During the meeting, there's a possibility of discussing firecracker regulation, said an official. The BMC instructed ward officers to deploy squads - comprising two ward-level engineers, a policeman, a marshal and a vehicle - to ensure the enforcement of guidelines issued to control air pollution.

While larger wards will be inspected by six squads each, medium-sized and small wards will be inspected by four and two squads respectively. Last week, Deepak Kesarkar, guardian minister of Mumbai City district, said in a press conference that there was no need for a complete ban on firecrackers in Mumbai.

95
No of squads to monitor cracker guideline