Vehicles appear to cause more pollution as compared to firecrackers: SC

The Supreme Court Tuesday said why people were "running after" firecracker industries when it seems that automobiles were "bigger" contributor to pollution, and asked the Centre whether there was any comparative study on pollution caused by both.

While expressing serious concern over loss of jobs of people involved in manufacture and sale of firecrackers, a bench of Justices S A Bobde and S A Nazeer said, "We do not wish to generate unemployment."
The top court said, "You must tell us some way of preventing unemployment also. We cannot have people unemployed and hungry. There are areas where firecrackers can be used."
Regarding the use of barium nitrate, which was earlier banned by the apex court, Nadkarni said, "Barium was banned in firecrackers by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Supreme Court also banned it. It was used only for testing purpose to check pollution from crackers."
When the bench referred to issue of job loss of people involved in manufacture and sale of crackers, the ASG said, "That is why the concept of green crackers came."