NGT seeks inspection records of all cracker units in Virudhunagar

The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has come down heavily on the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and the Tamil Nadu government, directing them to submit detailed inspection records of all firecracker manufacturing units in Virudhunagar from the last five years.

- SV Krishna Chaitanya @Chennai

THE Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has come down heavily on the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and the Tamil Nadu government, directing them to submit detailed inspection records of all firecracker manufacturing units in Virudhunagar from the last five years.

The directive comes amid a spate of fatal accidents at cracker units. The NGT bench termed the recurring deaths a result of "systemic regulatory failure" and expressed concern over non-compliance with safety norms. The rising deaths year after year points to gaps in enforcement, the bench comprising judicial member Pushpa Sathyanarayana and expert member K Satyagopal observed, as PESO and state counsels pointed fingers at each other.