Every Delhiite sleeps with a hope to see cleaner atmosphere and breathe fresher air next day but it never happens. The quality of air in Delhi-NCR and nearby area is deteriorating with every passing day. Air Quality Index has crossed the mark of 500 making it an emergency situation officially. According to WHO data over 4.2 million deaths of were caused by air pollution in a year worldwide and in India a child die every 3 minutes due to ambient air Pollution(Source: WHO). The already toxic air of Delhi is getting worsen by the smoke caused by stubble burning.
The Stubble Problem?
Before the introduction of harvesting machinery and extensive use of fertilizers/pesticides, the harvesting was done manually and stubble was also fed to cattle’s but as the amount of fertilizers increased, the stubble left after harvesting paddy crop became more and more hard over the time eventually refused by cattle’s to be eaten and doesn’t have any other associated profit for farmers too. So the only option left for farmers is to burn it to get rid and also fertilizing the field in the process rather employing machines or labour to cut it and store it or send it for proper dispose as it will increase their expenditure and we know Indian farmers are already in tough situation.
Residents and Policy-makers specially the states governments busy over blame game should just get this straight that farmers cannot solve the problem of toxic air single headedly. We should not expect farmers to be the “good Samaritans” and stop polluting “our” air which we breathe in.
The Bio-Energy Solution:
Imposing fines and issuing challans is not the solution. It won’t make air cleaner neither the enforcement against a wide farming lobby is going to happen because enforcement of law is the biggest weakness in India. For example Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, are still not efficiently applied and burning of solid waste is on rampant though it carries fine of INR5000 to INR10,000.
The best solution of this mammoth problem is, buying stubble from farmers (already happening in Chhattisgarh), better solution is not just only buying but making it rewarding as well. The stubble is actually a valuable biomass fuel that can generate renewable electricity. The supply of this stubble to power plants can give extra income to farmers instead of becoming a cost. The farmers will be happy to collect the stubble if there is a good amount of profit associated with it. Now the question arises how to make this win-win situation a reality?
The power to convert this idea into reality lies in individual state government or Central government. Conversion of rice husk into electricity is already happening in Thailand (Below 10MW small power plant with very attractive tariffs)(Source: Science Direct) which turned the burden of annoying rice husk into a profit giving commodity for Thai rice millers. The government can involve the energy procurement agencies like NTPC offering better prices to private power producers for electricity generated by stubble. This could give a “fresh” relief to North Indian Lungs.
This way government can facilitate the dream of doubling farmers’ income with a cleaner approach towards environment, ultimately allowing citizens to breathe without mask (improving public health). Thus, the greener and cleaner solution towards public and environment health can only be done once central Government rollup its sleeves and approach farmers, power agencies along with the state government whose residents are inhaling toxic fumes because this cannot be done single headedly like every other environmental crisis.
Follow me on twitter Aman@Twitter
Follow me on twitter Aman@Twitter
