Give reply on Centre’s advice to end crop burning: SC to EPCA

NEWDELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Environment Pollution Controlling Authority (EPCA) to submit a response to the central government’s suggestion to end stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, one of the main causes of severe air pollution in Delhi.

The report of the high-level task force that was constituted after a PIL was filed in SC, drawing the court’s attention to stubble burning, was submitted before a bench headed by Justice MB Lokur. The court expressed unhappiness when it was told that the task force had accepted the report of its sub-committee within 24 hours after receiving it.

On the court’s suggestion to include an expert from the health sector, the government had nominated the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences as a member of the panel.

The director’s appointment was made on January 5 this year and a day later, the task force approved the recommendations. The government had notified the high-level task force on November 23, 2017.

The bench told the Centre not to act on the report until it gives a decision on it. The nodal ministry for the implementation of the report will be the union ministry of environment.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, who is assisting the apex court in the air pollution case, had filed an application, suggesting measures to end stubble burning.

His suggested that the government must equip the farmers with machines to till the straw back into the fields. This must be provided to them free and the cost be recovered by imposing cess on petrol and diesel sales in Delhi.

Farmers should also be given subsidies to dissuade them from burning crop residue, he said.

Over 30 million tonnes of paddy straw is generated annually in Punjab and Haryana and set afire by farmers to reduce the turnaround time between harvesting paddy and sowing wheat. NEW DELHI: Wednesday was another chilly day in Delhi with the maximum temperature touching 18.9 degree Celsius, two notches below normal. The minimum temperature was 7.4 degree Celsius, normal for this time of the year.

There was shallow fog in the early hours with visibility going down to 600m at 8.30am in Safdarjung and 400m at Palam. The visibility improved thereafter.

Railway officials said 61 trains were running late, 17 resched- uled and 20 cancelled due to low visibility in Delhi and other places in North India on Wednesday. There was no disruption in the movement of flights in the early hours due to fog, Delhi International Airport Limited officials said. A clear sky is expected on Thursday. Dense fog has been forecast in the morning while there might be mist during the day. The maximum and minimum temperatures would be around 21 and 6 degrees Celsius, respectively.

The air quality index on Wednesday was 265, in “poor” levels, an improvement from Tuesday’s 312, in “very poor”.

According to the CPCB realtime monitoring, at 6am on Wednesday, the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were 137.3ug/ m3 and 224.9ug/m3 respectively. The particulate matters decreased slightly throughout the day and on Wednesday at 6pm the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were 127ug/m3 and 199.6ug/m3.