THE 'CRACKER' NEWS

Sivakasi and its surrounding villages in southern Tamil Nadu are the most cracker-accident prone places in the country. The tragic death of nearly 38 workers and onlookers at a fireworks unit in Mudalipatti village is one of the so many fire accidents the district has facing so far in the last few years. The main reason for this havoc is the reason that it has not been deployed with proper enforcement of rules. There haven't been many situations where the police forces feebly fought the public - the 'on-lookers' - who overstepped the fence put rounding the explosion site and such was the terribleness of the incident that the on-lookers were the huge causalities for their attempt in rescuing their fellow people. According to the sources in and around the accident place, it is said that the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization, mandated with responsibilities under the Explosives Act and the Petroleum Act, is reported to have suspended the license of the unit just a day before the accident. Thus, it is obvious that the concerned authority has not taken serious inspections in the unit and issue intense warnings if anything in the unit is out of order or seems like violating the rules. The national Factories Act, 1948, and the Tamil Nadu Fire Service Act, 1985, empower safety inspectors and fire service officers to order the factory owners to stick to the rules or stop the operations that particular industry is doing. There is no doubt that this particular accident is all about the non-compliance of the small-scale industries with safety norms and hence witnessing a tragedy that is a telling statement on the failure of enforcement authorities in supervising these hazardous units at the peak of their activity in the weeks leading to Diwali. The supervising organizations include PESO also which is one of the most influential bodies in view of checking such risks and safety measures concerned. Most of those killed in the accident were onlookers who rushed to the site on hearing the first explosion and in the intention of saving their people. But unfortunately, the first explosion was followed by another one which was more severe than its predecessor which caused the maximum number of deaths. This makes the thing of brutality very clear that the calculation of huge risks involved in these units have not been carefully analyzed and the severity of such accidents were not clearly explained to the workers and the people living around the place. With all these information put into the view, this particular accident can be well termed as an 'incident'. Other than some weak attempts to push people back, the police appear to have done little to warn the crowd that had gathered of the impending danger. The sense of tragedy is the greater because not only were the explosions preventable, but the deaths in the explosions too could have been avoided with some foresight and greater effort, had the local authorities developed protocols for dealing with hazardous fires in a high-risk area like Sivakasi. Finally, only tough enforcement of production and storage rules is the only way to minimize and eliminate risk in the firecracker industry. Wishing that this Diwali will not bear the stamp of so many deaths at the back of its cracker covers. Strict enforcement of rules over the small scale industries alone will help the people involved. The rolling stone could never be stopped. Let us make its road flat!