Sivakasi modernises - A City of its own kind

Article by JOSEPH VACKAYIL (Financial Express) But lack of a comprehensive national policy on fireworks hamper the growth of the industry

As yet another Diwali approaches, people of Sivakasi involved in cracker manufacturing are looking forward to a bright festive season. Almost 85% of the fireworks products in India are made by the 540 small, medium and large groups of factories located in this small town in Tamil Nadu.

According to A M S G Ashokan, general secretary, All India Federation of Fireworks Associations, the annual production is between Rs 500-800 crore, with exports from Sivakasi accounting for Rs 5 crore.

The fireworks industry employs about 1.5 lakh people directly and 2.5 lakh indirectly. About 10 lakh families in the country are engaged in fireworks-related activities for making a living.

For Sivakasi, fireworks is still a cottage industry. There are some signs of change showing up here, though, says J Tamil Selvan, managing director of Vinayakar Fireworks.

Several enterprising promoters have visited Chinese factories and introduced several modern methods and techniques into the fireworks manufacture. The Department of Science and Technology has taken the lead in conducting surveys among the fireworks factories and introducing several safety and environment-friendly measures, innovations in application and mixing of chemicals and other production and labour-oriented programmes.

Of the total manufacturing groups in Sivakasi, about 20 have a turnover of Rs 10 crore or more, 30 have production between Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore and the rest are small groups. Each group has large number of small factories spread across the Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu. Plans are afoot to modernise, mixing of chemicals, filling, assembling and packaging works. However, all other works like making the paper tubes etc are still outsourced with most of such works being done by women and children at home and in small sheds for the big contractors. They earn between Rs 300- 500 a week.

The growth of the fireworks industry, according to Mr Ashokan and Mr Selvan, however, has been hapmered by the lack of a comprehensive national policy, inadequate logistics support from the government, absence of an industry-led pricing policy, licensing controls on retailing and an unwarranted and “baseless label of child labour thrust upon the industry”.

“The fireworks industry is covered under the age-old Explosives Act, which is applicable to anything that explodes, from RDX to a small cracker. A draft national policy has been prepared but is yet to be announced,” Mr Selvan laments.

“Transportation is the biggest hurdle for the fireworks industry. Direct shipments are not available. The postal department does not accept fireworks sample parcels. The little bit of exports are being done through the Colombo port. For the Chinese the government gives full transportation assistance and they lead the world fireworks trade,” Mr Ashokan says.

There is no pricing policy for the industry. The retailer is the king. There are hardly any wholesaler or middlemen in fireworks business. The retailers with license deal with the manufacturers directly. There is huge gap between the manufacturing and selling prices. Fireworks which costs Rs 5 to a manufacturer is priced at Rs 50-60 in the retail market. It is the retailers who decide the maximum selling price labels that appear on the cartons of fireworks. It is common all over the country. Industry sources said the manufacturers have no control over the prices. The retailers decide. They fix higher retail price “to cover the license fee and other overheads”.

Mr Ashokan says if the police and district authorities could issue the retailing license in advance to large number of people, with a specified period of retailing, the market forces would gain upperhand and the prices would stabilise at reasonable levels. It would be advantageous to the consumers and also to the manufacturers.

“Now in most states the retailing licenses are issued a few days before Diwali. This prevents us from planning sales and identifying good retailers and dispatching the materials in time,” says S Rathinagiri, secretary, The Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers’ Association.

About the future of the fireworks industry, the national secretary of the association says, “The fireworks industry is on a rapid stride to suit the needs of the people. The manufacturers are shifting from noisy firecrackers to colourful aerial display varieties. Festivals hereafter will paint the sky with multi-colour cascades of bursting lights from fireworks, bringing cheer to the viewers and the thousands of labourers who produce them.”

Focus on giving special light-and-sound effects in crackers this Diwali :

For the Rs 750-crore fire works industry in Sivakasi it's the time to exhibit their creativity. The cracker-makers are focused in packing the latest light-and- sound effects in the fire works to let the people the real fun on Friday night - the night of Dipawali.

With taste of people changing with the time, this innovation was inevitable for the manufacturers of firecrackers and brought the manufacturers to think in terms of effects.

"Till 5-6 years back we only used to produce crackers which produced sound. We had produced sound, effect and colour. Nowadays consumer wants effects so we are doing a lot of efforts towards it," said S. Maheswaran, president of the Fireworks Manufacturing Association (FMA).

The fireworks industry this year had shifted from using aluminium explosive powder to black explosive powder for manufacturing firecrackers. This shift has helped in improving the variety of fireworks for this year's Diwali celebrations. This year the manufacturers are concentrating on fancy and colourful items rather than sound.

There are many crackers like the comet cakes which are introduced for the first time this year.

Sivakasi manufactures more than 80 percent of the firecrackers made in the country, and there are around 550 licensed units which make crackers in and around Sivakasi. (ANI)

SIVKAI FIREWORKS / CRACKERS :: Less noise, more eco-friendly now

This Deepavali is going to be less noisy and more eco-friendly as the fire crackers have been made in a such way that they emit low noise and do not pollute the environment, according to A M S G Ashokan, general secretary of All-India Federation of Fireworks Association.

Speaking to newspersons in Chennai recently, Ashokan said all the fire works had been manufactured as per the norms prescribed by the National Sound Level Committee, constituted by the Central government. The noise emitted by crackers would not exceed 125 decibels, he said adding that loud explosions and the polluting content of the fireworks had been controlled at the production stage itself.

Ratnagiri of Tamilnadu Fireworks and Amorces Manufacturers Association said almost all the units in the country, including a major chunk of the nearly 600 units in and around Sivakasi, India's nerve centre of fireworks-manufacturing, had shifted to use of gun powder from metal powder this year and hence the noise level would be significantly less. 'This would also help in reducing the air pollution by 50 per cent, making it more eco-friendly. Over the last two years, we have gradually stopped manufacturing noisy crackers like atom bombs,' he said.

'Normally we used 15- 20 gm of chemical content earlier in crackers. It has been brought down to between eight and 10 gm, which means there is 50 to 60 per cent less chemical content. But the effect (noise) is the same,' he further said.

The manufacturers attributed the reason for this phenomenal change to the varying taste of the discerning customers, who were looking for new and colourful varieties. 'This prompted us to change from sound to colour and aerial display varieties about two years back. And the response is overwhelming. This not only ensures noise level to the barest minimum but also makes the fireworks very eco-friendly,' he said adding that Sivakasi was now using the latest technology adopted in China with respect to fireworks.