DG CSIR inaugurates national, regional centres for green firecrackers at Nagpur and Karaikudi

chennai: director general of the council of scientific and industrial research (csir) and secretary, department of scientific and industrial research (dsir), dr n kalaiselvi on tuesday virtually inaugurated the national centre of excellence for green firecrackers at csir-neeri, nagpur, and the centre of excellence for green firecrackers at csir-cecri, karaikudi.the facilities, launched from the csir madras complex here, aim to support the country's fireworks sector in transitioning towards environmentally safer products. india is a major producer of firecrackers and the csir has developed green formulations that reduce particulate emissions by 30-40 per cent compared to conventional crackers.through its harit (harnessing appropriate rural interventions and technologies) programme, csir has extended support to small and medium fireworks units by addressing pollution concerns and sustaining livelihoods. csir-neeri serves as the certifying agency for green crackers.the newly inaugurated centres will offer raw material characterisation, standardisation, testing and analysis, and undertake r&d to develop new eco-friendly formulations. the karaikudi centre will cater specifically to manufacturers in the southern region and will be jointly operated by csir-neeri and csir-cecri.speaking at the inauguration, dr kalaiselvi said csir's green cracker technologies have benefitted lakhs of workers dependent on the fireworks sector. the new centres, she added, will expand csir's support to industries nationwide.csir-neeri director dr s venkata mohan and csir-cecri director dr k ramesha underlined their laboratories' commitment to advancing green cracker technologies. tanfama president p ganesan acknowledged csir's role in sustaining the fireworks industry.the event also saw the release of the standard operating procedure for the coes. senior scientists from csir-clri, csir-neeri and csir-cecri participated in the programme.