Stubble burning: States pulled up

New Delhi, Nov. 6: “Can you permit people to die like this and make it fait accompli?”, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday, while blasting the governments of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for failing to prevent severe air pollution in Delhi-NCR on account of stubble burning.

“Can you permit to go back by 100 years? It will be total chaos and total failure of the government machinery in the country,” said a bench of justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta.

The bench, which blasted the chief secretaries of the three states for failing to prevent stubble burning, said it cannot tolerate this anymore and will not “spare even a single officer” responsible for this situation.

The bench did not accept the suggestions of Attorney General K K Venugopal who said that farmers are reluctant to stop stubble burning and they have no other alternative as stopping it would affect their livelihood.

Venugopal said that areas in Punjab and Haryana can be divided into zones and stubble burning can be allowed in a particular zone on a given day. He said stubble burning in these states contributes to 44 per cent pollution in the NCR region.

“But why stubble burning? Why the government machinery cannot stop this? Once stubble burning is not good, it is not good. Is stubble burning the only solution? Why cannot it be collected or purchased by the government?”, the bench asked. “The government says that stubble burning is the only solution. We cannot allow this in the country. We are in a civilised country,” it said.

Venugopal said that in Punjab, farmers have tried machines to remove stubble from the fields but they say that these equipments are ineffective in large areas. He said that as far as small farmers are concerned, they say that these machines are very costly and they cannot afford them. “You give subsidy to the farmers,” the bench said, adding, “Mr Attorney, we are out rightly rejecting your suggestion. We are very sure that we will not permit this”.