Coimbatore: To add that much-needed sparkle to the festival of lights, a large number of firecracker shops have already mushroomed in the city.
According to the city police, they received 434 applications to set up temporary cracker shops in their jurisdiction this year, against 385 last year. “We have issued 431 licences this time, against 376 last Diwali.”
The spike in the number of cracker shops doesn’t, however, mean that the crackers have become cheap. In fact, prices of crackers have gone up steeply.
TOI visited a cracker shop on Cross Cut Road at Gandhipuram on Friday. As it was drizzling, only a few people visited the shop, which had umbrella-type sparklers, peacock sparklers and 240 multi-colour shot crackers on display.
“This year, prices of crackers have increased by anywhere between 10% and 20% compared to last year. We are expecting more people to buy crackers in the upcoming days,” said a shopkeeper.
As per the Supreme Court’s guidelines and the govt’s direction, people could burst crackers during the Diwali festival from 6am to 7am and 7pm to 8pm.
People could contact the Fire and Rescue Services Department at 101, Coimbatore South fire station at 0422-2300101, Coimbatore North fire station at 0422-2450101, Peelamedu station at 0422-2511001 and Ganapathy fire station at 0442-2595101 for emergency, if any. The city police could be contacted at 0422-2300970 or 81900-00100.
