The Centre will send flying squads to Punjab and Haryana for monitoring stubble burning cases and submitting daily reports amid information which suggested that the crop burning in Punjab is the major reason behind Delhi-NCR’s air pollution.
This decision was taken at a meeting chaired by the cabinet secretary on Wednesday. In attendance at the meeting were chief secretaries and other senior officials from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi, as well as the Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) and secretaries from the ministries of environment, agriculture, housing and urban affairs, and power.
The cabinet secretary also directed the Punjab administration to take effective actions to prevent stubble burning in the remaining days of this harvest season, government sources said.
Authorities including district magistrates, senior superintendents of police, and station house officers have also been instructed to ensure that any further stubble burning is prevented.
Sources said that the CAQM has been given the responsibility of deploying flying squads to Punjab and Haryana. The CAQM and the squads will be submitting daily reports on farm fires along with the status of enforcing the Supreme Court’s directives, sources added.
Both the state governments have been ordered to take follow-up actions on concerning cases — which were registered in the last two years — for violating the ban on stubble burning.
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Thursday alleged that the “criminal failure” of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to provide alternatives to farmers in Punjab has “turned Delhi into a gas chamber”.
Yadav called on AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to account for the Rs 1,426.41 crore that the Centre allotted to Punjab for acquiring machines to manage crop residue and asked them to justify the fund’s spending.
“This country is yet to see a bigger liar than Arvind Kejriwal. 93 percent of farm fire events this year have happened in Punjab, turning Delhi-NCR into a gas chamber, because Aam Aadmi Party has failed to provide alternatives to farmers. This is a criminal failure of governance on the part of AAP,” the Union minister said in an X post.
Sources also stated that stubble burning in Punjab is the major reason behind air pollution in Delhi-NCR during the paddy harvesting season. Between September 15 and November 7, a total of 22,644 stubble burning incidents were recorded, of which, 93 per cent of the farm fires were that from Punjab.
The “high number of stubble burning incidents” in Punjab were attributed to the lack of incentivising schemes by the state government.
“The Haryana government has been implementing its own incentive scheme for ex-situ management, including the procurement of straw from farmers and its transportation, etc. They also informed about an incentive scheme being implemented to encourage farmers to shift from paddy to other crops,” a source was quoted as saying.
Authorities present at the meeting noted that the Punjab administration should immediately launch schemes similar to that of the Haryana government.
A bio-decomposer — presented by the Delhi government as a cost-effective solution to tackle stubble burning — has also failed to control farm fires, the source noted.
Data from the Decision Support System suggests that a numerical model-based framework, which is capable of identifying sources of particulate matter pollution in Delhi, stubble burning in neighbouring states, especially Punjab and Haryana, accounted for 37 percent of the air pollution in Delhi on Tuesday.
Every year, unfavourable weather conditions along with vehicular emissions, crop burning, firecrackers, and other local sources of pollution, contribute to the hazardous air quality levels in Delhi-NCR during winter season.
As per a Delhi pollution Control Committee (DPCC) analysis, the pollution level in the national capital is at its peak from November 1 to November 15, which is also when the number of stubble burning cases in Punjab and Haryana increase.
Delhi recorded “severe” air quality continuously for six days, since November 3, with smoke from farm fires, especially in Punjab, being a major contributor to the capital’s air pollution.
Meanwhile, on Friday, sudden showers in Delhi-NCR brought down the AQI to a better level pushing the AQI down to 398 along with improved visibility.
(With PTI inputs)
