Stubble burning ban: No case in 17 months in 3 districts

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 17

Issuing a notification to ban stubble burning seems to be a paper exercise for the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and Department of Science, Technology and Environment in the state.

Even while the large-scale burning of wheat and paddy stubble by farmers makes life difficult after every harvest, in the last 17 months, the pollution control board has not noticed even a single case of stubble burning in Ludhiana, Sangrur and Barnala districts.

While in Faridkot, the board has taken punitive action against only four farmers, the PPCB has detected only two cases in Bathinda district, revealed the information procured under the RTI.

“While the USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had highlighted the problem by sending images of the state’s farms on fire from low Earth orbit and the Supreme Court has also taken a serious note of it, all these warnings have failed to stir the pollution control board into action,” said Kamal Anand, member of People for Transparency, a voluntary organisation.

The information procured by Kamal Anand under RTI states that a ban on stubble burning every six months is just a ritual in the state and it goes up in smoke every year after harvest.

Smoke from agricultural burning contained numerous substances, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, that could harm human health, said the notification of the Department of Science, Technology and Environment and Punjab Pollution Control Board on October 22, 2013 under Section 19 (5) of the Air Prevention and Control of Pollution Act, 1981.