Lucknow, Nov 10 (UNI) On the direction of the National Green Tribunal on Monday, Uttar Pradesh government has issued directives to the concerned districts to follow the guidelines strictly which ban use and sale of crackers till November 30.
Along with eight districts of the National Capital Region (NCR), 5 other districts have been included in the list of cracker ban by the government as in these districts pollution level is very high.
State chief secretary R K Tiwari in a notification issued here on late Monday night, says in his order that there will be total ban against sale or use of all kinds of fire crackers in the NCR from midnight of November, 9 -10, 2020 to the midnight of November 30 - December 1, 2020.
Besides the NCR districts of Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Baghpat, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Hapur, other other districts where the NGT law would be enforced are Lucknow, Kanpur, Moradabad, Agra and Varanasi.
The districts where cracker ban has been imposed are the area where the average of ambient air quality during November (as per available data of last year) fall under 'poor' and above category.
The order says that the cities/ towns where air quality is 'moderate' or below, only green crackers be sold and the timings for use and bursting of crackers be restricted to two hours during festivals, like Diwali, Chatt, New Year/ Christmas Eve etc.
Timing will be 8 to 10 pm on Diwali and Gurupurb, 6 am to 8 am on Chatt and 11.55 pm to 12.30 am during Christmas and New year eve (which have yet to come and do not fall in November but if ban continues) and not otherwise.
At other places, ban/ restrictions are optional for the authorities but if there are more stringent measures under orders of the authorities, the same will prevail.
UNI MB SB 1408