Masked by smoke from firecrackers, farm fires shoot up
New Delhi: As the smoke and pollutants from firecrackers enveloped the National Capital Region and many other parts of north India, farmers in NCR states took advantage of the cracker cover to burn stubble on their fields, which contributed significantly to the city's hazardous air quality — comprising 36 per cent of the pollution in Delhi's air — the highest this season so far.
While the Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR (CAQM) has repeatedly said that farm fires this year are significantly fewer compared to 2020 so far, a large part of this has been due to the extended monsoon, which delayed stubble burning. After the rains withdrew, the farm fires have also seen a rise.
In fact, blaming the farm fires among other sources for the dangerous air in Delhi, Environment Minister Gopal Rai noted that the week before Diwali, farm fires were averaging at 1,000 to 1,500 a day but on Diwali, this had purportedly gone up to 3,500 with winds pushing the pollutants to the NCR.
"The overall air quality of Delhi plunged to the upper end of the 'severe' category with additional firework emissions The share of stubble emissions has peaked today at 36 per cent," said Gufran Beig, the founder-project director of SAFAR.
"Local winds have picked up, and fast dispersion (of pollutants) is expected now. Without any more firecracker emissions, the AQI will improve to the 'very poor' category by tonight although the stubble contribution is expected to remain almost the same (on Saturday)," he said.
On Thursday, farm fires had accounted for 25 per cent of Delhi's PM2.5 pollution. Last year, the
share of stubble burning in Delhi's pollution had peaked at 42 per cent on November 5.
The sudden spike in farm fires is being reportedly attributed to the advantage of firecrackers being burnt on Diwali with farmers saying it is difficult for officials to detect farm fires in the middle of smoke from firecrackers hanging in the air.
While the Delhi government had announced that they would be spraying bio-decomposer to avoid stubble burning across all paddy fields, this programme was also interrupted by the extended rains. It is soon to be completed, officials have said. However, according to CAQM data, Delhi has not recorded any instance of stubble burning this season.
Significantly, both Punjab and Haryana have also decided to use bio-decomposer in large areas of agricultural land but Rai has asserted that they are not doing enough to effectively prevent stubble burning.
