Lok Sabha airs pollution woes in its first Parliament debate
Members call for tough measures, spar over blame; suggest incentives to farmers
NEWDELHI: India’s parliamentarians called for urgent new steps on Tuesday to tackle air pollution, holding an unprecedented discussion that also exposed political fault-lines at a time when concerted, interstate efforts seem to be the only way out of a crisis that has defied a raft of mechanisms put in place in recent years.
The debate in Lok Sabha also saw some common ground between the members – they agreed on the need for tough measures and for farmers alone to not be blamed for the crisis – and some of the proposals included enhanced financial incentives and a new, dedicated parliamentary committee to oversee anti-pollution policies.
“When the pollution issue occurs every year in Delhi, why is it that no voice is raised from government and this House over this? Why do people need to knock the doors of the Supreme Court every year over this issue? It is a matter of grave concern,” said Congress leader Manish Tewari, who suggested a new parliamentary panel.
The debate, originally scheduled for two hours, went on for more than four, and will conclude on Wednesday when Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar presents his reply.
Biju Janata Dal’s floor leader Pinaki Misra, who mooted a debate on air pollution at the allparty meeting last week, demanded the government give more incentives to farmers to procure machines to remove paddy stubble. “Let’s not blame the poor farmers. Stubble burning can contribute to pollution, but it is not the main reason. The fact is that the government, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, should take it (pollution) as a challenge, just like the manner in which he (Modi) launched a crusade against hygiene,” said the BJD MP from Puri, who also demanded a ban on poor-quality firecrackers with high sulphur content.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Pravesh Verma targeted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, accusing his administration of not doing enough to tackle the problem while spending ₹600 crore on advertisements. “Earlier the CM alone used to cough. Now the entire city and members of the House are coughing,” he said, while the Speaker asked him not to name the CM since the latter was not a member of the House.
Another BJP MP, former cricketer Gautam Gambhir, criticised the AAP government’s odd- even road rationing scheme and said the city needs “long term, sustainable solutions”, not “knee-jerk reactions”. Outside the House, the AAP hit back and pointed to some BJP members missing the debate, “Once again BJP’S complete apathy towards respiratory health of the people was on full display as many of their Delhi MPS were absent from the air pollution discussion in Parliament #Phirgayabbjp,” said national spokesperson Raghav Chadha in a tweet.
Just like there are standing committees such as Committee on Public Undertakings and Estimates Committee, there should be a committee to look into pollution.
MANISH TEWARI, Anandpur Sahib MP
LUDHIANA: After remaining on the lower side for a few days, the farm fire incidents have again started picking up pace across the state. As many as 1,289 stubble residue burning cases were reported from different parts of the state on Tuesday, taking the total fire incidents this paddy season to 50,967.
As many as 521 incidents to stubble burning were reported on November 18 and the number was 352 on Monday, only 25 on Sunday. On November 15, as many as 91 stubble burning incidents were reported.
On Monday, the state government announced re-verification of 29,343 small and marginal farmers who were compensated for not burning crop residue.
Farmers owning 5 acres or less are to be paid a compensation of Rs 2,500 per acre for not burning paddy residue. The government had disbursed over ₹19 crore among the farmers and the decision was taken after irregularities were detected.
Hindustan Times reported on Monday that the web-portal meant for paying compensation was hacked at two locations in Punjab. Last week, 1,985 entries from Nathu Majra village in Sangrur were found to be fake, when the village sarpanch clarified that there are not as many accounts of the farmers. Also, some dubious entries were found from Fazilka area.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) general secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal said there were several loopholes in the implementation of the scheme. He squarely blamed the state government policies for the rise in stubble burning incidents.
“Firstly they did not compensate the farmers during the time of harvesting. And when the apex court ordered the government to compensate farmers, the authorities doled out the entire ₹19 crore among their kith and kin. This has led to unrest and anxiety among farmers,” said Lakhowal
He also blamed other factors for the rise in stubble burning cases. He said the government compensated only the farmers owning five acres of less land and did not offer any perks to farmers having large landholdings and to the contractual farmers.
“This triggered a lot of resentment among farmers, leading to the rise in burning cases,” he added.