Patients being treated at Minto Hospital who had eye injuries from bursting crackers during Deepavali in Bangalore. File Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Following reports of loss of vision of over 300 persons, particularly children, during the Deepavali festival every year in the State, the Government is thinking of banning bursting of firecrackers on the road and residential areas.

Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Suresh Kumar, Home Minister V.S. Acharya and Medical Education Minister Ramachandra Gowda on Monday held a meeting with officials of the Home, Law, Fire and Emergency Services and Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and Minto Ophthalmic Hospital and proposed to ban bursting of certain varieties of firecrackers during the Deepavali and other festivals.

After the meeting, Mr. Suresh Kumar told presspersons that the Government had decided to set up a committee to suggest solutions to the problem of bursting of crackers and precautions to be taken during festivals, particularly the Deepavali.

Officials of the Home, Law, Fire Service, and Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and Minto Ophthalmic Hospital would be members of the committee. The committee would submit a report to the Government in 15 days.

The committee would study the laws governing fireworks in the U.S. and the U.K. and explore the possibility of whether any such laws could be enacted in Karnataka.

Based on the report, the Government would frame a law or amend the existing law for its strict enforcement, he said.

Most of the victims were children aged below 10 and innocent passers by. “We need to think of some kind of solution to this”, Mr. Suresh Kumar said.

One of the solutions being considered was bursting of crackers at a designated place, where people could enjoy the spectacle of colours. Nearly 60 per cent of reported cases were moderate to severe injuries to eyes. “Bombs and rockets” turned out to be most dangerous crackers, he said.

Mr. Suresh Kumar said about 15,000 cases of impaired vision were reported from different parts of the country during the Deepavali. The Government would launch an awareness campaign in schools by screening films on the dangers of bursting crackers and also through the visual media, he said.