varanasi despite the fact that the festival of diwali is less than a week away the district administration failed to begin the process of issuing temporary licences to cracker shops even on thursday however the adm city h has issued instructions to complete all formalities at the earliest on an average about 350 petty vendors are issued temporary licences for the retailing of crackers for three days on the occasion of diwali every year the district administration has prescribed norms for the selection of site where such shops are installed after seeking clearance from various departments including fire brigade electricity and police if sources are to be believed the district officials had sought details of places where temporary cracker shops used to be set up from the district magistrate office it was done a fortnight back and the report had to be compiled after seeking report from all the police stations on the other hand due to delay in beginning the process of issuance of temporary licences a large backlog of applications took place at the adm city office the increasing pressure of applicants and the delay being caused by junior staff irked adm city mp singh the latter summoned clerks of the arms section and issued a clear instruction to them to collect reports from all police stations regarding places where retailing of crackers would be done he instructed to complete the exercise by thursday evening the licence seekers could also be found requesting the officials to allow them to deposit the prescribed fee at the treasury but singh assured them that not only would the basic formalities for issuance of licences be completed by evening but special arrangements would also be made immediately for the deposition of fee singh said the issue of site selection would be completed and the process of issuing licences begin from friday he also warned that overlooking the prescribed norms for installing temporary cracker shops would make punishment inevitable for temporary license seekers its worth mentioning here that in the past the license holders preferred to install their shops in main market and populated areas instead of holding their trade in open areas as per norms about illegal trading of fireworks and trading in densely populated areas like dalmandi where licence of many stockiest and traders had been cancelled in the past he said due to engagement in important works like maintaining law and order during durga puja celebration and army recruitment rally the police force could not become available to continue the drive against those illegal traders and stockiest but a massive drive would be started in a day or two he said and added mainly the police stations concerned had to launch the drive but senior officials would monitor the drive