The blast in a firecracker unit at V. Savaram village in Konaseema district in Andhra Pradesh that claimed eight lives is the latest in a series of accidents that have punctuated the weeks leading up to Deepavali, year after year. The unit was among the 18 firecracker manufacturing units in the district that had had a safety audit about a month ago. The units had been issued licences by the District Collector. Such incidents have been reported in the district in earlier years too. A three-day ban on firecracker manufacturing has been imposed and a fresh safety audit has been ordered. It would appear that no anomalies were found in the audit and no red flags were raised. Besides the 18 firecracker manufacturing units, there are 18 other units in the district that procure and sell crackers wholesale during the season. While firecracker manufacture is not a major activity in the district, there are some seasonal units. There were 10 people in the unit that used chemicals to manufacture the crackers when an electrical fire led to an explosion and the collapse of a wall. That the authorities found it difficult to identify the dead would point to poor record keeping. Further, Konaseema is in the Godavari basin which has extensive oil and gas drilling and transport operations including pipelines. Fire accidents can be devastating if they spread to these facilities.
Firecracker manufacturing is not a major economic activity across India barring Tamil Nadu. The awareness levels and scrutiny are, therefore, not always high, and Konaseema would seem to be one such case. The nodal agency that licenses these units is the Petroleum & Explosives Safety Organization (PESO) which has various levels of licensing with elaborate safety protocols. Fire needs fuel, air and a source of ignition. Cracker manufacturing units have many combustible materials, which are the fuel, which is why sources of fire must be completely absent. It is for this reason too that electric equipment and switchboards must meet high fire safety standards and should intrinsically protect against the starting of fires. Even if an electric fire were to start, it should not spread to areas where explosive chemicals are used. An added layer of safety typical in PESO protocols is that the electric equipment can only be operated when no human would be present. But it would seem that such elaborate protocols were either absent or poorly implemented at Konaseema. The accident shows that there is a case for all such units across the country to scrupulously apply the high-level safety protocols of PESO.
Published – October 10, 2025 12:10 am IST