New Delhi / Karnal / Chandigarh: This year, stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana has not decreased mainly due to the reluctance of the local administration to act against violators due to continued protests by farmers in the two states.
The result: Delhi and its neighboring areas are grappling with deteriorating air quality that could exacerbate the Covid-19 pandemic in the region, authorities said.
On Thursday, Punjab’s Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh claimed that Delhi’s air pollution problem was due to local factors, but data from the Remote Sensing Center of the University of Punjab, Ludhiana, shows an increase in three times in Punjab stubble burning incidents compared to 2019 (3,996 incidents from September 21 to October 15 compared to 1,266 in the same period last year), with only six farmers registered for agricultural fires. These figures are higher than those of the Indian Meteorological Department, but are directionally similar, also pointing to a three-fold increase in agricultural fires in Punjab and Haryana this harvest season.
Haryana has done slightly better than Punjab with 71% more incidents of stubble burning during the same period. According to the Haryana Space Applications Center (HARSAC), as of Oct. 15, the state reported 1,835 active fire locations (AFLs) compared to 1,072 during the same period last year.
Officials from the two states also said, on condition of anonymity, that the stubble burning began at the time when farmers’ bodies were protesting three farm bills passed in the winter session of Parliament and that any action against burners stubble could have aggravated the situation on the ground.
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“We have to be cautious because spirits were very high,” explained a Punjab government official, when asked why many farmers had not been booked to burn stubble. A Haryana government official added that there was a reluctance to act against farmers as it could have added “fuel” to the farmers’ ongoing unrest.
Farmers burn rice stubble to clear fields and sow the winter wheat crop, 90% of which is purchased by the government to maintain the Public Distribution System (PDS). The fires send fumes into the air causing massive pollution across the northern plains.
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Almost all of southern Punjab, which includes districts such as Bathinda, Mansa and Fazilka, and the Rohtak, Sonepat and Panipat districts of Haryana, adjoining Delhi, showed an increase in agricultural fires on the National Administration of Fire map. US Aeronautics and Space
According to air pollution experts, northeast winds bring pollutants from agricultural fires in the two states and smoke, which mix with local emissions and cause pollution levels to rise in the National Capital Region. “We are seeing a sudden increase as the local emissions load in an area within a 70 km radius of Delhi is also very high,” said an air pollution scientist from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, who asked not to be identified. He added that stubble burning has resulted in increased pollution levels in the northern plains.
On Friday, several NCR cities such as Baghpat, Rohtak, Faridabad and Gurugram reported bad to very bad air quality. This was actually a marginal improvement over Thursday as the wind speed improved and helped in faster dispersal of pollutants. Delhi has been in the poor or very poor category for the past week.
There are several reasons for the increase in agricultural fires this year.
This year’s rice harvest season in India’s two food bowl states started earlier than 2019 due to the long dry spell that began in early September. Last year, monsoon rains hit the northern plains until October 15, delaying the peak harvest season until the first week of October. This year, the harvest started from September 18 and the acquisition from September 26.
The purchase of rice began in Punjab and Haryana from September 26 due to the early arrival of the harvest, while in other states, it began from October 1, according to a statement from the Food Ministry. As of Thursday, 4.358 million tonnes of rice had reached the markets of Punjab, exactly double the corresponding arrivals from last year. Also in Haryana, the purchase of rice is double that of last year.
The early harvest resulted in an early spike in agricultural fires. According to the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB), the period from September 21 to October 5 saw a five-fold increase in agricultural fires compared to 2019. Haryana reported twice as many agricultural fires during the same period.
S Narayanan, Secretary Member of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, said the increase in agricultural fires was due to the early harvest. “We have issued warnings to district collectors to take action against violators,” he said.
Punjab Pollution Board Secretary Krunesh Garg said it is too early to come to a conclusion even though the current scenario is worrying. “I am confident that the current season will end with fewer cases compared to the previous year,” he said, adding that more than 50,000 cases of stubble fires were reported in the state in the last two years.
The reluctance of the two states to act against farmers is reflected in the number of people registered for stubble burning this year. In Punjab, only six farmers have been registered against 1,706 registered in 2019. According to officials, an environmental tax of Rs 21 lakh has been collected from 806 farmers compared to 14,200 who were imposed this penalty last year. “The police are taking no chances, especially when farm agencies are agitating in the state for new farm laws enacted in Parliament last month,” said a senior agriculture department official.
In Haryana, the number of registered farmers this year is about 60% less than last year. Despite 374 agricultural fire incidents reported in Karnal district, only two FIRs have been recorded and around 30 farmers have been fined Rs 68,000.
Local officials also said that because ground-level officials were busy harvesting the record rice crop in the two states, monitoring of agricultural fires was poor. Agriculture and revenue department officials are deployed to control agricultural fires, but this year due to the record harvest, they were posted for quick acquisition. “Farmers were protesting and the purchase was becoming a political issue,” said an official from the Haryana agriculture department, pointing to the protest of farmers in Kurukshetra over the delay in buying rice.
But some farmers also cleared their fields quickly to grow vegetables that are fetching a good price in the retail markets.
“Rising prices of vegetables in retail markets have attracted farmers to burn harvest waste and prepare fields to grow vegetables such as potatoes, cauliflower, russet, peas and carrots,” said Rajiv Kumar, a farmer of Shahsbad in Haryana.
A farmer from the Bathinda district of Punjab, Paramjit Singh, said he has already cleared farms to grow cabbage, which is fetching a good price on the market. The price for cauliflower at the Azadpur market in Delhi on Friday was between Rs 30-60 per kilogram and for potatoes it was between Rs 17-40 per kilo, about 40% higher than the price in the same period on last year.
However, officials from two states claimed that subsidized machines were provided to farmers for stubble management.
Garg said farmers were using government-supplied crop residue handling machines to clear the stubble and said the impact would be visible in the coming days. Former Punjab agriculture secretary Kahan Singh Pannu said 23,500 machines were supplied to farmers this season, of which 15,000 are super seeders. “With this machine, managing crop residues would be a breeze,” said Pannu, who retired on August 31, after working in stubble management since 2010.
But some officials admitted that only large farmers benefited from the subsidized machines. “Providing subsidized implements will not help, as most of the subsidies are being taken by the large farmers and the benefit is not reaching the small farmers. The government must reach out to small farmers who are about 80% (of all farmers), ”said a senior official from the Haryana agriculture department, requesting anonymity.
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