Stop crop burning

Stop crop burning

Instead of just fining Punjab and Haryana farmers, give them profitable alternatives too.
In a week or so wheat harvesting will end in Punjab and Haryana and it will be time to get the fields ready for paddy planting in the monsoon. This is a very worrying time for the larger neighbourhood including Delhi, because if farmers ready their fields by burning stubble, the dark smoke clouds that rise as a result travel far and wide, carrying in their wake severe air pollution. Once again the Environment Pollution Control Authority has directed both state governments to ensure that there is no wheat stubble burning. Chief Ministers Amarinder Singh and Manohar Lal Khattar must ensure that this time their state machinery fulfils the EPCA directive.
On the upside there is evidence that both governments are now doing more stringent monitoring but on the downside this seems to be just driving many farmers to burn the stubble covertly ¬ or claim that their field fires are accidental.
This reflects poorly on measures to provide farmers convenient and profitable alternatives to burning stubble. For example, subsidies for agri equipment, such as happy seeder or rotavor that can sow seeds without the need to remove the remains of stubble, haven't reached most farmers ¬ not to mention that these subsidies are accompanied by cumbersome formalities.
The track record is even worse when it comes to commericalising the stubble for animal feed, packaging and paper industries, power generation, etc. Both Punjab and Haryana governments have been unconscionably laggard on this front. This must change. Remember that burning stubble doesn't just cause respiratory diseases and worsen greenhouse gas emissions; it causes severe heat stress on the farmland itself, with one rough estimate being that it destroys soil nutrients worth up to Rs 2,000 crore every year.
But speaking of laggardness, when stubble is burnt and a soupy smog rises, when city chemists run short of protective masks and a public health crisis grows, India's National Air Quality Index cannot even provide a reliable measurement as it doesn't have enough monitoring stations and even the existing ones don't monitor for all important pollutants. It has one air quality monitor for the entire metropolis of Mumbai as compared to London's 100.From Centre to states; solutions to curb crop burning and clean the air are well known. What's needed is the political resolve to deliver these solutions.