trichy the trichy police have decided to permit crackers shops during diwali season with some guidelines after taking into considering a lot of safety aspects the move comes following the blast at a cracker unit in sivakasi that claimed the lives of 40 people in september police say that strict adherence to the rules by the shops and the stringent action against the erring shops could only ensure a safe diwali usually during diwali season several cracker shops mushroom in the city limits the shops would function after obtaining licences from the corporation fire service department and the police as the sivakasi cracker unit blast came as an eyeopener the trichy city police issued guidelines to be followed by the cracker shops though the guidelines were issued in the previous years during diwali they were not completely adhered to by the shopkeepers the officials also showed leniency to the shops and punishments were not stringent however this year as many as 132 applications have been received at the city police commissioners office for getting permission to set up crackers shops however police have decided to permit 115 shops only rest of the applications were rejected for not satisfying the rules some of those who applied for renewal have also been rejected the numbers of shops given permission have come down this year compared to last year when 126 shops were permitted of the several guidelines to run a shop the prescribed quantity of crackers to be stored in the shop would be a headache for the shop owners as the fire service department insisted them not to have more than 50 kg of crackers and 500 kg of sparklers however the shop owners feel they can earn only during the festive season and the restriction would affect their business a fire service department officer lamented the shops want to stock more crackers than the prescribed limit even if we are ready to take action they escape from the law by using their influence despite a lot of lessons from various accidents they are greedy for money by compromising the safety meanwhile the fire and rescue services department personnel on wednesday staged a fire safety drill for school students about the safe bursting of crackers during diwali the personnel also demonstrated the right method of bursting crackers they insisted the students and those assembled there to adopt a method stop drop and roll instead of running away if someone catches fire