Five people have been arrested by Surajpol Police today for illegally selling fireworks at the onset of Diwali festival. While, a temporary firework market at Gandhi Ground has witnessed another year of downfall in business.

Fireworks sellers Ashok Sindhi, Nanakram Lalwani, Ashutosh Sharma, Vimal Tiwari and Sagarmal were booked under Explosive Act 286 of IPC. All detained traders have their shops at Amal ka Kanta, Surajpol.

According to Sobhagya Singh, SHO Surajpol Police Thana, “We received information about five local traders that they are selling fireworks in a densely populated area without legal documents and license so we made small teams and raided the shops.”

“We arrested them after they failed to produce license for selling fireworks,” the officer added.

On other hand, business of 43 firework retailers who have set their shops at temporary market ( Phataka Bazaar) at Gandhi Ground has seen another appalling year after their sale has dropped to 50% as compared to the last year.

Three years back, Municipal Corporation of Udaipur had planned to establish a special market for fireworks on Diwali and the motive behind this was to provide a range of fireworks at one place which is also safe, rather selling in congested and crowded areas of the old city.

But unfortunately, the plan could not attract many people of Udaipur. “In a hope of a good business, we set our shop here but there is no business, we are sitting idle and hardly a few people come to buy fireworks,” says Deepak Maheshwari, one of the shopkeepers.

M.L. Samar, executive at the Revenue Department, Municipal Council says, “We just set the market there, the permission to shopkeepers is given by additional magistrate and now what and how the business is going on is not directly our concern.”

According to the sources there are still many small kirana-style shops in the old city area which are selling fireworks without permission; no strict action has been made to stop them.

Traffic problem is common due to a few big firework shops located inside the old city area. This is a menace for common people.