Farm fires choke Delhi, AQI enters danger zone
Spurt in stubble burning in Punjab, low wind speed add to Capital woes
Farms in Punjab recorded a spurt in cases of crop residue burning over the weekend, satellite images show, and winds slowed down in much of north India – creating two potent conditions that resulted in the air quality in the national capital plunging on Tuesday to its worst level so far this season.
The average air quality index for the day was 401 – classified as ‘severe’, the second worst of five grades of pollution – as satellite pictures released by the National Aeronautical Space Agency (Nasa) showed a band of haze stretching from across the border in Pakistan to Agra in western Uttar Pradesh.
“It is because of unfavourable meteorological conditions that air quality has worsened. A cyclonic circulation over Odisha is blocking winds, as a result of which the wind speed [in north India] has dropped as has the ‘ventilation index’ (which determines how fast pollutants get dispersed),” a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) official said. “Mist in the morning and pollutants from stubble burning regions of neighbouring states are making the air toxic,” he added.
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana set fire to stubble left from paddy harvest in order to quickly turn their fields around for the next round of sowing, a problem that the state and Union governments have tried to solve through punitive as well as assistive measures such as subsidies on farming equipment.
Farmers said more instances of burning will be reported in coming days, especially around the festival of Diwali when fireworks will add a cocktail of toxic gases that are anyway hard to disperse due to meteorological conditions typical for this time of the year.
“Crop stubble burning will continue up to November 15 and
overlap with Diwali. Farmers cannot help it because almost 50% of the crop is left to be harvested,” said Harinder Singh Lakhowal, general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU).
Another farmer said the increase was inevitable since there is little time left for sowing wheat, which begins from November 10. “Small farmers cannot purchase equipment to handle straw, thus they have no other option except to burn it,” said farm leader Darshan Singh in Patiala.
An official of the Punjab pollu- tion control board, who asked not to be named, said another spike could come around Diwali. “Many farmers will try to burn paddy straw by terming it as incidental fire,” the official added.
“The primary pollutants in Delhi’s air – PM10 and PM2.5 – shot up alarmingly over the past one week. At 8pm on Tuesday PM10 level shot up to 454ug/m3 which is 4.5 times above the safe limit of 100ug/m3. The ultra fine particles PM2.5 shot up to 256ug/ m3, which was 4.2 times above the permissible limit of 60ug/ m3,” said the CPCB quoted above.