Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority has written to its chief secretaries of Punjab and Haryana to act against the burning of crop residue should be stopped immediately.
As per SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) estimates based on INSAT-3, INSAT-3D and NASA satellite the number of fire count was 42 alone on Monday. Since the winter season is approaching soon so this matter of stubble burning has to be stopped with urgency. The matter is really serious if we see at the data of the last year
when crop residue of 20 million tonnes were burnt in Punjab and 7 million tonnes of stubble was burnt in Haryana which caused the Air Quality Index of Delhi became critical.
India has 21 out of 30 worst Air Quality Index cities of the world
Delhi is the most polluted capital city of the world. This number become even worst in the winter season. The primary reason for this is vehicular pollution, construction, stubble burning. However, the lesser know fact is that cause of Poor Air Quality Index of many cities of India is also because of the geography because of which the land between the Vindhyas and Himalayas which is primarily the place of Northern Plains is a place where Air is trapped between and the smog and other pollutants do not get spread easily. This can be easily seen by the example of Muzaffarpur, which is a city in Bihar. This city is away from Punjab and Haryana and is also not so much developed that vehicular pollution plays important role but its due to geography. This would be more clear if you see all the list of most polluted cities of India in order
Ghaziabad, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Greater Noida, Bandhwari, Lucknow, Bulandshahr, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Jind, Faridabad, Coraut, Bhiwadi, Patna, Palwal, Muzaffarpur, Hisar, Kutail, Jodhpur and Moradabad.
It can be easily seen that most of the places belongs to the Northern Plains.
EPCA has told that the process of working on the Stubble burning is relatively delayed because of the main focus on the COVID-19. The advancement of technology in the form of Satellites has made the farmer under 24 hours surveillance and they can not burn that easily this time in Punjab and Haryana.
