AA Edit | NCR Bad Air: Don’t Blame Farmers
The expansion of the city brought with it attendant issues such as pollution from fossil fuels. Lack of proper waste management processes and protocols added to the mess
The suggestions of the Supreme Court that farmers cannot be made scapegoats for the pollution in the National Capital Region and that the authorities must look for all the available options much ahead of the stubble burning season to help the people of the country’s capital breathe easy are practical and show a sincere intent to find viable solutions to the lingering problem.
Farmers have been burning crop stubble, a by-product of their activity, for generations. It may have created problems in the past, but the impact was limited. The location, quantity and reach of the smoke that emanated from the fields had a role in minimising it.
As population grew, and the capital region expanded, stubble burning has become a health hazard, as the Chief Justice of India has repeatedly said. The expansion of the city brought with it attendant issues such as pollution from fossil fuels. Lack of proper waste management processes and protocols added to the mess.
It is important that a solution be finally found to the problem once and for all, but the farmers who have been arraigned as the first accused cannot be blamed. It is up to the government to come up with an alternative option for them so that they can dispose of the stubble stock in an environment-friendly manner and save the capital’s population from this veritable threat, which is now much more than a mere menace, but in its absence, it will be both unfair and unproductive to train our guns on the agricultural community.
Why don’t the people of the capital region, too, chime in, with their ideas and contributions? The apex court has given the Commission for Air Quality Management in Delhi a carte blanche to end the menace. It is now up to the agency to work with stake-holders and solution providers to look for an option to end stubble burning. As the apex court has pointed out, it cannot be an ad hoc affair in force only in winter but a scientific investigation that must start at the earliest so that the winter of 2026 is safer for the children of NCR.