Stubble Burning Fix: AAP Proposes, But An Agency of Its Own Government Disposes
AAP's big bet on bio-decomposers is questioned. Air pollution levels in the world’s most polluted Capital in the first few days of October are more than the same time last year.
The smog’s coming in thick. That’s clear from reading smoke signals in the past week. Delhi and north India’s air pollution levels have begun rising. These are already higher in the first few days of October compared to the same time last year. Despite some progress to cut emissions in the last two-three years, officials from across the board have listed concerns which make it quite clear there won’t be any significant improvement this peak-pollution season.
Air Pollution Levels Already Higher This October Than Last Year
North of Delhi, farmers have started fires to clear their fields of stubble remnants of the paddy harvest, or parali in local lingo. There are already hundreds of these and in the past few years there have been tens of thousands during October-November.
This time the Aam Aadmi Party is under extra scrutiny for its actions to cut air pollution. It’s been in power for several years in Delhi, the world’s most polluted Capital, and now it’s also in power in Punjab where most of India’s stubble fires during this time occur. This pollution blows across to Delhi, and other regions, contributing up to almost half the pollution on some days depending on the climatic conditions.
The AAP has bet big on a bio-decomposer developed in Delhi which is a sustainable solution to get rid of the stubble without fire. It topped a list of fifteen steps the party chief and Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, announced recently as measures taken to cut air pollution in the Capital.
However, a presentation earlier this week by the Punjab government’s Pollution Control Board paints a bleak picture. It calls the bio-decomposer trials “not very encouraging” and the overall decomposition “was not significant.”
Stubble Burning Fix: AAP-promoted, Bio-Decomposer Tech “Not Very Encouraging” says Punjab Pollution Control Board; Punjab is governed by AAP.
The Punjab PCB, at a workshop organised by Climate Trends, has also flagged a massive shortage of machines, which can remove the stubble without burning known in official jargon as crop residue management or CRM. It says there are a little over 90,000 available but projects a demand of 150,000.
Another cause for concern is the funding - not the lack of it but inability to spend what was allocated. Over Rs 212 crore in subsidy was unspent last year, when the Congress was in power in Punjab. In recent weeks, the AAP-led governments and the BJP-led central government have faced-off over the funds with the AAP seeking funds to compensate and incentivise farmers not to burn the stubble by hiring stubble-removing machinery.
Punjab’s PCB officials have also said it will take 4-5 years more to end the practice of stubble burning by farmers. Given that this has been happening for over a decade already, it raises the question of accountability at various levels of governance, not just in Punjab.
On the plus side, the pollution control officials say that the area burnt has reduced, in 2021, by some 25% over a two-year period although the number of fire counts remain high. Yet, it contributed as much as 48% to Delhi’s pollution on one day, and averaged over 33% for a week last November.
Pinning hopes on this declining trend may be clutching at straws. This year more paddy has been sown and that means more stubble to get rid of quickly in the short turnaround time to sow the next crop. SAFAR, a governmental agency which forecasts air pollution, says that in a business-as-usual scenario the fire counts are likely to be about 80,000 with 6-8 ‘severe’ air pollution days.
Progress has been limited over one of the other key solutions being worked on for the last few years. That is to buy the stubble from farmers, convert it into pellets and use it as fuel in coal-fired power plants. In a recent direction, the new, powerful body Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) called for pellets to be 5-10% of the fuel mix. But this week at an inter-ministerial meeting the Central government noted the target of 5% was still far off.
The meeting attended by India’s environment and power ministers pushed thermal power plants to use this stubble, and it acknowledged that no one has the right to put innocent lives in danger. Pollution does that, even to unborn babies. A new study in the UK has shown that toxic air pollution particles have been found in foetuses which could not only cause low birth weight and premature births but also long term effects like brain development.