City vows to celebrate Green Diwali

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 18

The pledges to celebrate green Diwali are resonating across the city with schools and NGOs taking out awareness rallies, requesting residents to say no to crackers.

With the High Court directions restricting the timing for bursting crackers for only three hours on Diwali, many city residents are relieved as they hope that there will be less pollution.

The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) also organised a seminar ‘Save Environment, Celebrate Green Diwali’ to motivate students at Baba Farid Institute.

Ruby Sidhu, SDO, PPCB, was the keynote speaker of the seminar. She apprised the students of the need for cleanliness of the environment through a power point presentation.

She said keeping in mind the festival of lights, a cracker-free Diwali should be celebrated to check pollution.

Air pollution is increasing day-by-day and it is the responsibility of the people to take care of it, she added.

An anti-cracker rally was organised by students of Baba Farid Group of Institutions to observe pollution-free Diwali.

The rally was organised by the NSS unit of Baba Farid College. Dr Gurmeet Singh Dhaliwal, chairman, Baba Farid Group of Institutions, and Paramjit Kaur Dhaliwal, managing director, BFGI, flagged off the rally.

More than 100 NSS volunteers participated in the rally on Baba Farid campus by holding banners carrying different slogans.

All NSS volunteers took the oath that they would observe pollution-free Diwali.

Many traders could not sell even 15 per cent of their stock so far in the city.

Ashok, a firecracker seller, said the exact number couldn’t be estimated, but from my experience of selling crackers since years, this year sales had gone down by 60-70 per cent.

Not many children have come to buy crackers and it is all because of the awareness and anti-cracker drives started in schools.

Hritvik, a Class VII student, said, “I love bursting crackers but our teachers have told us to avoid doing so to keep the city clean and green. I asked my parents to gift me something else from the money which I might have spent on crackers and they agreed.”