Punjab has pleaded helplessness on the farm fire menace clearly citing the impending Assembly elections in March-April 2017. Members of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) told Mail Today that at two recent meetings, Punjab agriculture department officials prayed they may be excused from fining farmers for burning paddy straw.

FARMERS' VOTE IMPORTANT FACTOR

"We do not wish to risk upsetting farmers just ahead of the polls," they reportedly said. The meetings took place in Chandigarh on October 7 and in Delhi on October 21. Farmers form a large voter base in the agrarian northern state of Punjab. As per the 2011 census data, the total rural population of Punjab is 1.73 crore, which is 62.5 per cent of its total population, who are engaged primarily in farming.

As per 2001 figures, the total number of agricultural workers in Punjab is 35.55 lakh, which is around 39 per cent of its all workers. All parties in the poll fray- Shiromani Akali Dal, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party-have been trying to woo the farmer populace. On the other hand, rice stubble burning in the month of October-November in Punjab has emerged as a huge pollution problem, as represented by satellite images provided by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF FARM FIRES

A scientific apportionment study recently conducted by the National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) assigned farm fires in Punjab and Haryana up to 60 per cent of the Particulate Matter 2.5 that flies to and chokes Delhi. A member of EPCA said requesting anonymity said: "We had asked all three neighbouring states of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh-to provide us data on how many farmers have been fined up till October 21. Haryana reported 1,200 farm fire incidents and `8,00,000 collected in fines. Punjab reported 1,881 such incidents and claimed non-availability of fine collection numbers. Uttar Pradesh did not provide us any data." While UP is not a great concern as the wind direction from here blows southwest taking all the smog towards eastern UP and Bihar, Punjab and Haryana remain the biggest offenders in Delhi's pollution pie, said the expert.

MEASURES TAKEN AGAINST FARM FIRES

Punjab generates 20 million tonnes of paddy stubble at the end of each Kharif season and Haryana produces 12 million tonnes of the same. "Punjab simply said election season is approaching and we cannot offend farmers at this time," the EPCA member said. "We have asked them to implement the other measures at least," he added. In view of the huge agrarian pollution problem, Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) have passed strictures on banning paddy stubble burning in the past. The NGT even went to the extent of demarcating slabs of fines for big and small farmers in December 2015. It ruled that landholders with less than two acres will pay `2,500 per fire incident, land holders with up to five acres shall shell out `5,000 and those with farm area more than five acres shall pay `15,000 in fine. "However, political reasoning is taking over environmental sense," the EPCA member said.

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)-who's DG Sunita Narain is a member of EPCA-has previously expressed its disappointment on the issue. Research Associate at CSE Polash Mukherjee said: "Punjab has not taken any concrete action on the subject since 2013. They have only six power stations which buy paddy stubble from farmers with a total capacity of using one million tonne of straw and generating 62.5 MW electricity. That leaves us with 19 million tonne of paddy which is obviously burnt." Machines which can help farmers either remove the excess straw or shred and mix it with soil-such as rotavators and happy seeders-are also in short supply, said Mukherjee.

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