The Cabinet Secretary recently held a meeting with the Chief Secretaries and other senior officers of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, and NCT of Delhi to discuss the current air pollution crisis. The meeting was also attended by the Chairman of the Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) and Secretaries of Ministries of Environment & Forests, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Affairs, and Power.
The meeting discussed the data provided by CAQM and the inputs provided by the state governments. It emerged that the current crisis situation is majorly on account of stubble burning. Stubble burning contributed to 38% of the air pollution level on November 8. For the period from September 15 to November 7, a total of 22,644 stubble burning events have been recorded, out of which 20,978 (93%) were in Punjab and 1,605 (7%) in Haryana.
Harvesting is more than 90% complete in Haryana whereas it is 60% complete in Punjab. Therefore, immediate steps are needed to check further stubble burning during the remaining harvesting season, particularly in Punjab.
After detailed discussions, the Cabinet Secretary directed the following:
*The State administration of Punjab to take effective actions to stop further stubble burning in the remaining days of this harvest season. Responsibility should be fixed on DCs/DMs, SSPs, and SHOs for ensuring that there is no further stubble burning.*CAQM to send out Flying Squads to Punjab & Haryana and submit daily reports on the incidents of farm fires and status of enforcement of directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court by the DCs / SSPs. CPCB should make necessary manpower available to CAQM.
*All State Governments to take follow up actions in respect of cases instituted during the last two years for violation of ban on stubble burning. Details of action taken to be shared with CAQM.
*State Governments of Punjab and Haryana to make full use of available Seeder machines to prevent further stubble burning.
It was also noted that the Ministry of Agriculture has released Rs. 3,333 crore under Crop Residue Management (CRM) scheme so far. Of this, Rs. 1,531 crore was released to Punjab and Rs. 1,006 crore to Haryana. Nearly 1.20 lakh Seeder machines are available under the CRM Scheme in Punjab and 76,000 in Haryana. Optimum utilisation of these machines could have prevented stubble burning to such a large extent.
