Diwali is here again. Easily among the most popular festivals in the country, Diwali is celebrated by most Indians regardless of faith with people decorating their homes with lamps, exchanging sweets and gifts, and burning firecrackers.

But this fun festival, described as the “Festival of Lights,” has increasingly become associated with smoke, noise and accidents also. Every Diwali, there are reports of children getting burnt while bursting fire crackers and of shops selling fireworks going up in flames. Noise and smoke levels on the festival days touch dangerous levels.

The noise level on Diwali is known to exceed 140 decibels in some places; the level that is tolerable to the human ear is 60 decibels. The atmosphere on Diwali night is thick with noxious gases. Monitoring stations have reported a 400 per cent increase in sulphur dioxide levels in the air on Diwali. The sharp rise in noise and pollution levels on Diwali damages the respiratory and nervous systems.

Authorities have taken steps to restrict the damage. A Supreme Court directive for instance has banned the bursting of crackers between 10 pm and 6 am. Over 20 types of crackers including the “sutali bomb” and the “atom bomb” that exceed the 125 decibel level are banned.

But fireworks manufacturers brazenly violate norms and manufacture these banned “bombs”. Unless noise pollution standards are monitored and enforced at the place of manufacture of the crackers, it will be impossible to regulate noise pollution on Diwali.

There is a misconception that fireworks like sparklers and “anars” (fountains) are less dangerous simply because they are less noisy. But these have been found to contain deadly heavy metals like cadmium and lead besides copper, manganese, zinc etc. These visually beautiful fireworks release horrific levels of dangerous gases into the atmosphere. Authorities have acted – albeit half-heartedly – to curb noise levels of crackers. They must step in to check their poisoning and polluting impact as well.

But individuals too can do their bit to bring back the fun into Diwali. Rather than wait for authorities to ban crackers or for manufacturers to clean up their act and produce more environment-friendly fireworks, we could refrain from buying and bursting banned crackers. Children need to be made aware of the dangers that they pose to our lives and environment. They should be encouraged to celebrate this festival by lighting lamps.