List steps taken to curb farm fires: SC to CAQM

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought a report from the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) on steps taken to prevent farm fires and action taken against officers for allowing such incidents despite past orders to stop them, reacting to news reports of farmers in Punjab starting to burn stubble. The reports first appeared in Hindustan Times.

A bench headed by justice AS Oka posted the matter on Friday and told the Centre represented by additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati: “We want an answer to this on Friday.”

The bench, also comprising justice Augustine George Masih, passed the order following an urgent mention by senior advocate Aparajita Singh, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae in a case relating to air pollution in Delhi. She referred to news articles that said stubble burning had begun despite efforts made by the court last year to prevent them.

At that time last year, an elaborate action plan was drawn out by a high-level committee headed by Cabinet Secretary with states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi on board spelling out alternate measures to ensure stubble is made commercially viable to dissuade farmers from burning it.

In December 2023, when the court last dealt with the issue, the bench expressed the hope that the winter of 2024 would be “better”, and stressed the need for constant judicial monitoring.

Delhi’s air is usually bad due to a variety of reasons -- road dust (mostly accumulated from the surrounding desert), construction dust, vehicular pollution, and biomass (garbage) burning. It enters the severe category in the Air Quality Index (over 300) when winter sets in, winds cease, and farmers, mostly in Punjab, set fire to stubble to clear their fields post harvest.

The high-level committee made an important recommendation for the states of Haryana and Punjab to disincentivize stubble burning by denying minimum support price (MSP) to farmers who indulge in such actions. It said, “The states (of Punjab and Haryana) may take immediate steps to put in place mechanisms for making red entry in farm records for all cases of stubble burning. Department of Food and Public Distribution may consider the suggestion to exclude farmers who resort to stubble burning from MSP operations.”

Further, the report asked the Punjab government to come out with incentive schemes for diversification from paddy and work with grain-based distilleries to facilitate procurement of maize from farmers. Data gathered by the committee found that in Punjab, 36,663 farm fires were reported last year and ₹2.51 crore was collected as fines from erring farmers. The committee noted that Punjab accounted for 93% of farm fires reported in and around Delhi .

The orders of the court were passed in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by MC Mehta pertaining to air pollution in Delhi. While considering various measures to ease the pollution load in the city, the court had been directing Centre and concerned states to adopt short term and long-term measures to put an end to stubble burning while monitoring pollution from other sources.