‘Some of the major reasons are a rise in farm fires, burning of effigies, and unfavourable weather conditions’.
The AQI of Delhi dropped from “moderate” to “poor” after the Vijaya Dasami celebrations, though GRAP stage 2 also kicked in two weeks after GRAP stage 1 in the national capital.
Some of the major reasons are a rise in farm fires, burning of effigies, and unfavourable weather conditions. Punjab this season recorded the highest single-day stubble burning, with 589 incidents on Thursday, the season’s highest, taking the count to 3,293. In this season, the per day farm fires in Punjab have been below 200. However, this is still less than half of the cases recorded last year at the same time.
Bhavreen Kandhari, environmentalist and member of Warrior Moms, said: “Stubble burning will continue because farmers have valid reasons to do that. They must sow next season, and some of them use Monsanto seed, whose stock is very thick and they can’t cut it by hand. The government is not supporting them or implementing crop diversification. Even after the Supreme Court’s order that farmers in Punjab should get support of Rs 300 per quintal, farmers are not getting that, and we can’t expect farmers to sacrifice and find a way because burning stubble is their necessity.”
Though one of the biggest reasons for pollution in the national capital is due to stubble burning, traffic menace in Delhi is another reason contributing to this air pollution and smog. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) have declared vehicular emissions as a major contributor to Delhi’s increasing air pollution. Vehicular emissions are increasing the hazardous effects of air pollution and smog.
However, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will deploy eight anti-smog guns at spots that see crowding to deal with the worsening air pollution.
Responding to the current air pollution situation, Kandhari said, “The government needs to make systemic changes the whole year too, not just when it’s winter. The entire year, they have just concentrated on construction projects, prioritising vehicles, making flyovers and underpasses, and cutting trees an hour in Delhi. Even after the High Court statement, you want to include one million sapling plantations in their interaction plan. These things don’t help. They have to work on the sources of pollution throughout the year. They have to recognise that we are in a public health emergency. The solutions I can see are not just policies that should be brought, but should be implemented on the ground level and crop diversity should be highly considered by governments.” Farmers should be supported so that they become less dependent on paddy by using their crops in schemes like midday meals, she added.