Motor vehicle emissions are one of the main causes of poor air quality. The Automobile companies and Society for Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) have reasons to contest this. Several other causes include dust from construction sites, wood-burning fires, fires on agricultural land, burning garbage, exhaust from diesel generators, and illegal industrial activities. Fine particulate matter PM2.5 is of greater concern than PM10 for people’s health, since it settles in the lungs when inhaled. It also reduces visibility and causes the air to appear hazy at elevated levels. Fog or haze, a low-lying cloud, when intensified by smoke or other atmospheric pollutants becomes smog. Delhi like most other cities is witness to cumulative effect of all these factors. A growing city, haphazard hacking of trees have all exacerbated the misery. Several plants can absorb pollutants on the external surfaces of leaves and on the plant root-soil system. But where are they? Different reports and measures skew the debate, adding to the uncertainty.
A research paper of the Ministry of Earth Sciences published in October 2018 for Delhi, attributes almost 41% of PM2.5 air pollution to vehicular emissions, 21.5% to dust and 18% to industries. As winter sets in, dust particles and pollutants are suspended in stagnant air resulting in smog. ‘Teri’, the energy and resources institute through a 2018 study, points out that vehicle pollution is the cause of 28% of PM2.5 emissions. Not only this, the report further fine tunes 28% pollution to 9% due to trucks and tractors, 7% from two-wheelers, 5% from three-wheelers, 3% each from cars and buses, and 1% from LMV’s in addition to 18% contribution from dust of which 3% is due to dust rising from roads, 1% due to construction dust and 13% from other reasons. About 30% is industries contribution that include power plant generators at 6%, brick kilns at 8%, stone crushers at 2% and 14% from small industries and finally the residential areas contributing the remaining 10% to the pollution.
When it comes to PM10 levels, industries are the biggest culprits. 27% of the pollution comes from industries, 25% is related to dust, vehicular pollution being 24%, households contributing 9% and stubble burning contributing only 4%. Air Quality Index (AQI) reports how clean or polluted the air is and not how it is polluted, and the associated health effects such air might have. Why are we so concerned about stubble burning at the expense of all other culprits when its contribution is just about 4%, influencing 15-20 days a year, during which PM2.5 spikes to 30% due to associated weather conditions? Is Yamuna frothing at the seams due to stubble burning? Are farmers to blame for this? Is it fair to penalise them? Is coercive action with punitive damages and police raids the answer? Are the illegal tanneries and industries pumping out untreated and dangerous effluents not responsible? What is seen is cumulative pollution and not just farmer induced. Assuming they stop cultivating the winter crop, since the stubble is not pulled out in time, farmers would lose. People will also lose, since the price of the crop would rise adding to inflationary pressures.
In a country where regulations exist but implementation is flawed, why is the yearlong pollution allowed to cause damage? This would call for implementing BSVI norms by 2020 and phasing out of old cars even if the industry already in recession is hit further. It calls for polluting industries to be closed. The farmer’s miseries are elsewhere. Stubble burning is just what we see.
In Punjab, about 20% of straw is managed through biomass power plants, paper and cardboard mills. More than 20 million tonnes is burnt in open fields. The stubble does release enormous quantities of particulate matter like PM2.5, along with other noxious gases. The higher moisture content in the winter air, accentuates the problem as it traps the pollutants and prevents their dispersal. Sufficient wind speeds have to transport these particles across the states. However, wind magnitude and wind speed is complex depending as it is, on air pressure differences and their orientation.
There are many other problems like ground water depletion through uncontrolled sinking of bore wells, rise in uranium and arsenic content in ground water due to increased use of pesticides etc which no one talks about. Paddy, which grows on about 75% of cultivable land in Punjab, is a water-guzzling crop and has dried up the state’s water bed. Estimates by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices for 2015-16 suggest that the state uses 5,337 litres of water for every kilogram of paddy. Though the government invested in canal irrigation, it benefits only 20% of the cultivable area.
Everything in life has a flip side. The green revolution brought about an abundance in food grains with paddy cultivation becoming important to farmers and was supported by various schemes. The cycle of rice in summer and wheat in winter has left little time for the farm land to recover. The problem of stubble increased only after combine harvesters were used. Normally paddy is manually harvested and stubble was simultaneously ploughed back into the fields. Combine harvesters can harvest, thrash and clean the separated grains all at once but leave a foot-high stubble. Manually harvesting the crop is unfeasible because of high labour cost and increased land under paddy. Hence it is burnt to manage the time lines and cost.
Instead of waiving off farm loans, can the government not provide combine harvesters to clustered farm lands on a cooperative basis? A low tillage machine to cut the straw and distribute on the field is priced at about ₹1.5 lakh which a farmer cannot afford, since his seasonal return does not exceed ₹12,000 to ₹15,000 per hectare. Further the government can start medium scale plants for paper, card board or block board manufacture in the vicinity of farm lands, to provide new employment opportunities.
Diversification of agricultural land-use and cropping pattern of the states must change as time goes by, if ecological disasters are to be avoided. It could be a simplistic solution. An effective price remuneration with assured procurement market, demand forecast and inventory planning, at the right time, must exist to mitigate farmer’s woes. An agrarian society cannot afford farmer suicides.