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05-10-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court asked authorities on Thursday to report back within a week on what they were doing to stop farmers from burning crop residue as smog began to pollute the air in the capital Delhi and surrounding regions, local media reported. Farmers in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh burn crop stubble after rice is harvested around October to clear the fields before planting wheat crops. The smoke contributes to a toxic smog that engulfs Delhi, frequently making it the world’s most polluted capital ahead of winter as calm winds and lower temperatures trap pollutants in the air.
Federal and state authorities have encouraged farmers to stop burning crop residue and penalized those that do but have not been able to fully curb the practice due to the large area involved and the hostility of farmers in some places.
“In some of the districts in Punjab and Haryana the incidents of stubble burning increased substantially as compared to 2023,” legal news website Live Law reported the court as saying. “However, all (that) the states have done is to recover nominal compensation from 42 and 45 farmers respectively.”
A government website monitoring crop burning showed about 200 fires almost every day in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh since the middle of September.
The court also pulled up the Commission for Air Quality Management, a government body responsible for air quality in the national capital region, saying it “does not seem to be making any efforts to follow up implementation of its own directions”.
The court asked the commission, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and state authorities to report within one week on the action being taken to stop crop residue burning.
India was rated the third most polluted country last year by Swiss group IQAir, behind Bangladesh and Pakistan. New Delhi ranked sixth on a real-time list of the world’s most polluted cities with the air quality index at 115 on Thursday, a level considered unhealthy for sensitive groups.
India’s weather office has forecast moderate air quality in the capital until Oct. 6 and then moderate-to-poor for six days after that.
Experts fear air quality could further deteriorate from mid-October when farm fires are expected to increase before peaking towards the end of the month and beginning of November. Both the Punjab and Haryana governments were also on the receiving end for not taking penal action against farmers engaged in stubble burning and the officials empowered for taking action against them (farmers). “No change will occur if penal action was not being taken at the grassroots level,” the bench observed, taking exception to both Haryana and Punjab collecting nominal compensation from the farmers burning stubble contributing to poor air quality in Delhi.
On the compliance affidavit filed by the CAQM, it said, “From affidavit of compliance we find that no effort is being made by CAQM for implementation of its own directions, not a single prosecution has been initiated. Last meeting was only held on August 29 and there was no discussion on stubble burning. Entire September there was no meeting. Only five out of eleven members attended the meeting… It is all in the air, total lack of sensitization.”
Posting the matter for October 16, the court directed the Centre and CAQM to file affidavits within a week. In the last hearing on September 24, the apex court had asked the CAQM to explain the steps being taken to curb and control air pollution caused by paddy crop residue burning in the National Capital Region and in the adjoining areas.
