Red light over Delhi's 'green' crackers

Last week, Supreme Court gave firecrackers a reprieve from an absolute ban this festive season. Instead, it has opted to 'balance' popular and religious sentiment with the need to limit air pollution and protect public health. The top court ruled that specified 'green' firecrackers meeting prescribed norms can be used, but their use will be restricted to designated hours. The court is yet to finalise the timings, while the separate question of firecracker restrictions in Delhi-NCR remains pending. The order extends the relaxation nationwide and clears firecracker chains, or joined crackers (ladis), that remained banned under the 2025 rules.

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The problem begins with the deceptively reassuring label 'green'. These crackers are, at best, 'less polluting'. CSIR-Neeri's formulations cut emissions by 30-50%, while its latest Gen-2 formulations, with reduced barium salts, cut PM10 and PM2.5 emissions by 45-60% versus conventional crackers. An improvement, but hardly a clean-air solution. For the Indo-Gangetic Plain, including Delhi-NCR, lower emissions per cracker do not make the aggregate pollution problem disappear. Nor is enforcement easy. Despite restrictions, conventional crackers flooded the market alongside 'green' products last year. Neeri says 1,403 manufacturers are registered, and green crackers carry product-specific QR codes for verification. But ensuring that compliant products are sold, and conventional or counterfeit crackers are not passed off as green, remains a challenge.


The court's approach feels like one step forward, two steps back. A festive compromise cannot become a substitute for year-round measures that tackle the far larger sources of pollution. The thumb on the scale must favour cleaner air and stronger enforcement.