Fire safety measures given a miss at crackers market in city

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 17

Fire safety measures seem to have gone for a toss at firecracker markets in the city as neither any police personnel nor any fire brigade truck was spotted today at the designated places. The sale of firecrackers started today in the city.

A team of Bathinda Tribune today visited the Multipurpose Sports Stadium, which is one of the designated places for the firecrackers sale. Traders could be seen quarrelling over space for setting up their stalls.

It is also learnt that all firecracker traders were adjusted in the space allotted to the licences holders in the city. A huge area has been provided for setting up a single stall.

The administration has instructed the stall owners to have a bucket of water, sand and a fire extinguisher at each stall, but giving the thumbs down to the instructions some owners have kept empty buckets and some of them have contained a little water and sand. 

Stall owners appear to be a little serious about fire security. The administration seems to have adopted a carefree attitude as after issuing instructions, it has not been keeping a check on the fire safety measures at the stalls.

The condition is that in the absence of police personnel, cars and motorcycle have been parked in the middle of the ground near the firecracker stalls.

Some of the stall owners said they had paid Rs 3,000 for setting up their stall at the Multipurpose Sports Stadium. They said the district administration should have checked the fire safety measures. They added that if any untoward incident takes place, these little buckets of water would fail to provide any relief.

While talking to Bathinda Tribune, firecracker traders expressed concerns. They said this season, their stock would not be sold much due to the restriction in the timing of bursting of crackers.  

Some of firecracker sellers claim that they will not sell crackers from next year due to losses.