On October 9, V. Poovarasan, 25, heard a deafening blast. It was about 9:30 in the morning and he was working in the godown of a licensed firecracker unit in the village of V. Viragalur in Ariyalur district of eastern Tamil Nadu. Before Poovarasan could understand what was happening, a fire triggered by the blast began to quickly spread in the unit. He cowered in fear as he heard multiple explosions and then ran out of the godown.
“I was with three others in the last godown of the unit. We all ran towards a safe spot near a water body. While running, I fell, but thankfully I managed to get up and escape from the site,” recalls Poovarasan, who has been working at the unit for seven years.
Though relieved then, Poovarasan was horrified to learn later that his father-in-law Ravi and mother-in-law Sivakami, who were working in the first godown of the unit where the blast took place, were dead. His younger brother Sathyamurthy and his brother-in-law Karthik, who were also employed there, escaped with injuries. Karthik is undergoing treatment at the Thanjavur Medical College Hospital, about an hour away from the spot, while Sathyamurthy was discharged a few days ago.
The tragedy claimed the lives of 12 workers, including three women. The unit was reduced to rubble within hours and vehicles close to the unit were gutted. Officials say efforts are under way to cancel the licence of the unit where the blasts took place.
A dispersed industry
For years, Tamil Nadu, and particularly Sivakasi, an arid region in Virudhunagar district, has been known as the fireworks capital of the country. It all began in the early 20th century when two young cousins, A. Shanmuga Nadar and P. Ayya Nadar, set off to Calcutta to learn about the match work industry and came back with enough knowledge to set up two fireworks factories. The business did well in the region where rainfall was scanty and agricultural production low. Over the decades, more and more factories came up and the Sivakasi industry grew to account for 90% of fireworks production in India. According to estimates of the Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association (TANFAMA), there are around 1,085 cracker manufacturing units in and around the Sivakasi region today. At least 8 lakh people are directly and indirectly involved in the fireworks and allied industries, including transport.
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However, in the last few years, the industry has become much more dispersed, with small units, both legal and illegal, coming up across Tamil Nadu, with many of them being set up by those trained in Sivakasi. The head of a cracker manufacturing unit says this spread is due to high profit margins. “This is why even people with a retail license are venturing into the manufacturing business,” he says. “Workers from Sivakasi are paid double or even triple the wages to work at these units for eight to 12 hours of work during the festival season.”
Many of these units are under the radar; they function with little supervision, monitoring, or official inspections. This has resulted in a spate of accidents in recent times. On June 1, 2023, for instance, an explosion occurred at a licensed private cracker manufacturing unit in Salem West Taluk, about 370 km from Chennai, claiming nine lives. On October 17, accidents took place at two fireworks units in Virudhunagar district, killing 14 people, most of them women. In recent months, the central region of Tamil Nadu witnessed four blasts in licensed country cracker manufacturing units in the Ariyalur, Pudukottai, Mayiladuthurai, and Nagapattinam districts, which killed 19 labourers. On September 12, for instance, an explosion took place at a godown which was part of a firecracker manufacturing unit at Ayakkaranpulam near Vedaranyam in the coastal district of Nagapattinam. The unit was one of the four licensed units functioning in the district. “All these units had been functioning for more than three decades. But they were involved in manufacturing firecrackers only for local temple festivals and processions and not for Deepavali,” says a senior official from the Revenue Department. All these tragedies have turned the spotlight on smaller and often unregulated units.
No training or experience
Those who have been in the business for decades point out that such accidents happen for several reasons. Sometimes, units stock chemicals above the permitted limits. Many units also employ workers without any training. The blast at a licensed firecracker manufacturing unit at Thillaiyadi in Mayiladuthurai district, about 250 km from Chennai, on October 4 claimed the lives of four people. The tiled-roof building housing the unit, functioning since 2008 on the outskirts of a residential area on a dry patch of land, was reduced to rubble within seconds. “The accident occurred because of the mishandling of explosives by inexperienced and untrained youth who were employed at the unit,” says Mayiladuthurai District Collector A.P. Mahabharathi. “The unit was closed down.”
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During the festive season, some licensed units also sub-lease work to smaller units which have no experience. “Certain processes have to be completed within a stipulated time,” says the proprietor of a popular firecracker brand. “For instance, the mixing and filling of chemicals. Only a skilled person can do this in a chemical room. And 80% of accidents happen during this process alone.”
Officials say that the blast in Salem district on June 1 occurred due to this. P. Prakasam, the son of one of the victims, Banumathi, recalls how he found out about her death. “I rushed to the Salem government hospital, believing that my mother was admitted there. But I didn’t find her. Then I came to the accident spot and found her nose stud. I knew then,” he says.
Prakasam, a painter, says his mother used to work for around five hours at the cracker unit and earn ₹500 per day. During Deepavali, she would work a full day. “She was working in the unit for 10 years. She did everything, including mixing chemicals,” he says.
The proprietor of the firecracker brand says a decade ago, the cracker industry attempted to automate dangerous processes such as mixing. However, only a handful of factories succeeded because these machines cost ₹25 lakh-₹30 lakh. The rest of the units continue to rely on people like Banumathi for this work.
Salem District Collector S. Karmegam says the explosion on June 1 was an accident and that no violations were reported. The officials from the Tamil Nadu Industrial Explosives Limited Vellore inspected the accident spot and confirmed this. “We formed a committee comprising officials from the revenue, police, industrial safety, and fire and rescue service departments. The committee inspects the cracker manufacturing units regularly, and if any violations are found, we close the unit,” says Karmegam.
Shortage of manpower
However, the proprietor says monitoring by officials is done “only during the festive season when production is high or after there is an accident, although work happens the year round.”
The Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO), the licensing and regulating authority for large fireworks units, is short-staffed. PESO licenses are granted to outlets handling 15 kg to 2,000 kg of fireworks. PESO now has only five officials in Sivakasi — two at the rank of controller of explosives and three deputy controllers of explosives — to monitor more than 1,000 units.
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After the Muthalipatti fire accident in 2012 in which at least 40 people were killed, PESO Sivakasi, which was regulating the safety of units handling hazardous substances such as explosives, compressed gas, and petroleum, was designated to monitor fireworks units alone. However, the Sivakasi sub circle office has remained without a head for many months now. “Even if the five officials go for inspection on all the working days, they might not be able to conduct a thorough inspection of all the units in the district in a year,” says an official.
The task of monitoring is made more challenging by the fact that many units have informers. “On several occasions, units in which there are violations of safety norms are hurriedly closed and their gates locked before officials arrive,” says an official.
Official action
All these issues and accidents have galvanised officials into action. After the two accidents on October 17 in Virudhunagar district, Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu and Minister for Labour Welfare C.V. Ganesan held a meeting with key officials from the industry and others. Thennarasu stressed that only trained workers should be allowed to work in these units. He said that effective monitoring must be ensured, enforcing agencies should take strict action against violators, and illegal units should be eradicated. Ganesan said, “We have given instructions for constant monitoring of units. If we receive any complaints, disciplinary action will be taken.” Virudhunagar Collector V.P. Jeyaseelan says periodical inspections are being done across the district with the support of special squads now.
In Erode district in western Tamil Nadu, there are 137 licensed cracker manufacturing units and 13 units involved in making sky shot crackers, which go up in the sky in a burst of colours. Most of them are small-scale units employing less than four people.
“A committee is monitoring these units regularly. Over the last few years, country bombs were being made illegally at a few houses. The police have nabbed the accused,” says an official.
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An explosion on July 29 in a firecracker outlet in Krishnagiri town has also spawned a string of inspections. The blast claimed nine lives. Two forensic reports determined that the accident was triggered by a cylinder explosion at an eatery three shops away but sharing the same concrete roof. The cylinder blast had led to the collapse of the roof triggering the explosion in the fire-cracker outlet, the reports said. However, another inquiry committee headed by the District Revenue Officer was inconclusive, says a revenue official.
The eatery belonged to Saranya’s mother Rajeshwari, 48. Saranya, who lives in Chennai, says she received a call from a relative asking her to reach Krishnagiri after the eatery collapsed. The relative refused to divulge more details. By the time Saranya crossed Vellore, she had heard the news on WhatsApp of a firecracker explosion and learned that the victim was her mother. “She was planning to close down that shop and move to another place,” says Saranya. Rajeshwari’s family contest the official version based on forensic reports. They say there were no burns on the victim’s body. “It is about clearing her name. Chemicals were handled inside the firecracker outlet, but the blame for the explosion fell on my mother’s shop,” insists Saranya.
After the accident, the licences of 51 outlets of the approximately 100 functioning in Krishnagiri district were cancelled for various violations, most of which pertained to firecrackers being stocked above the permitted limit and of outlets operating with expired licenses.
Officials also say that the opacity of PESO and lack of communication pose problems for the district administration. In Krishnagiri, 30 outlets have been granted PESO licenses. “PESO is extremely understaffed to conduct inspections. They don’t have any links with the district administration,” says a source in the collectorate. “We have flagged 20 outlets which have a PESO license for being located in crowded areas, especially in Hosur and Bagalur, based on a police report. At first, we were informally told that there were no restrictions to locating units in crowded areas. Later, we were told PESO has issued notices to those outlets,” he says. PESO Vellore, which grants licenses to nine districts including Krishnagiri, did not respond to interview requests.
Soon after the Ariyalur blast in which the unit owner and his relative were arrested, the police seized country crackers stocked illegally at unauthorised places in the district. They also detected violations at five firecracker manufacturing units and 25 stockists which had permanent licences to sell firecrackers.
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“Joint teams comprising officials from the police, revenue, industrial safety and health have now been constituted in the wake of the blasts to carry out detailed inspections at sales units and manufacturing units,” says Ariyalur Collector J. Anne Mary Swarna.
Following the blast at a firecracker unit in Poongudi village in Pudukottai district, in which two people were killed, Collector I.S. Mercy Ramy says, “Owners of manufacturing units have been given clear instructions on the guidelines to be adhered to as well as the safety measures.”
With inputs from S. Sundar in Virudhunagar, M. Sabari in Salem, R. Rajaram and N. Sai Charan in Tiruchi, S.P. Saravanan in Erode, and P.V. Srividya in Krishnagiri
