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India's top court orders crackdown on stubble burning to cut Delhi pollution
Delhi pollution: farm fires set to continue despite court ruling
(about 4 hours later)
Supreme court says residents are ‘losing precious years’ as judges order immediate halt to practice
Indian city suffering record levels of poor air quality, partly caused by stubble burning
India’s top court has ordered a crackdown on stubble burning around Delhi, a major contributor to lethal smog that on Tuesday kept the metropolis of 20 million people choking in air rated “very poor”.
The illegal burning of crop stubble by farmers in India, one of the biggest causes of the record-breaking pollution that has enveloped Delhi over the past week, is expected to continue for the next two weeks, despite a supreme court order for all farm fires to be halted.
The supreme court said the capital’s residents were “losing precious years” of their lives, adding “people are dying, this just cannot happen in a civilised country”.
Delhi has been experiencing its longest spell of hazardous air quality since public records began, with the city suffering from “severe” levels of pollution for nine days straight, prompting a public health emergency to be declared.
In a ruling following petitions filed by activists, the court’s judges ordered an immediate halt to the practice of farmers burning crop stubble in the states surrounding the capital. Burning stubble is already illegal, but many hard-up farmers say they have no choice.
On Sunday, the city’s worst day for pollution in three years, air quality monitors registered the concentration of toxic particles in the air at 50 times the level recommended by the World Health Organization.
The judges warned that the entire administrative and police hierarchy – all the way down to local officers – would be held responsible if the practice continued.
Much of the blame for the worsening problem has been laid at the door of farmers in Delhi’s neighbouring regions of Punjab and Haryana, who, despite laws banning the practice, continue to set fire to their fields to clear excess crops. The dust and fumes from the fires are blown over to Delhi, where they engulf the city. According to Safar, the Indian government air quality regulator, 46% of Delhi’s pollution this week was caused by stubble burning.
Each winter, smog hits northern India as cooler air traps the stubble smoke, car fumes, factory emissions and construction dust close to the ground, creating a noxious cocktail that burns eyes and makes breathing difficult.
On Monday, Punjab registered 5,953 farm fires in a single day, the highest number so far this year, which, according to satellite data collected by the Punjab Agriculture University, brings the total number of farm fires this season to 31,267.
On Sunday, pollution shot up, with levels of particulates measuring less than 2.5 microns – so tiny they can enter the bloodstream – approaching 1,000 micrograms per cubic metre of air, the worst in three years.
Authorities in Haryana meanwhile registered 4,288 cases of stubble burning this year so far.
The World Health Organization’s recommended safe daily maximum is just 25.
After a petition was submitted by environmental activists, India’s supreme court on Monday ordered a complete halt to the practice of stubble burning and reprimanded authorities in Punjab and Haryana for allowing the illegal practice to continue under their watch.
Flights were diverted and hospitals reported a surge in patients with respiratory complaints.
“People are dying, this just cannot happen in a civilised country,” said the court judges in a statement, warning that the entire administrative and police hierarchy, all the way down to local officers, would be held responsible if the practice continued.
Concentrations of the tiny particles – which can be lethal with long-term exposure – fell on Tuesday, with the government monitoring agency Safar rating the air “very poor”, down from “severe” a day earlier.
But the chief ministers of Haryana and Punjab have each blamed the other for the polluting fires. On Twitter, Haryana chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, posted a satellite image purportedly showing less crop burning cases in his state than in Punjab.
According to the AirVisual website, Delhi remained the most polluted city in the world on Tuesday, ahead of Kolkata in eastern India and Lahore in Pakistan. Beijing was in sixth place.
However, with the burning season only just beginning, the fires are expected to continue for at least the next two weeks as farmers clear their fields ready to plant new crops.
Construction was banned temporarily in Delhi late last week, while schools have been closed until Wednesday – with city authorities handing out free anti-pollution masks to children.
Poverty stricken farmers have complained of being scapegoated for the pollution problem. The machinery to manually clear the fields is expensive and so for many, burning the excess crops is the only affordable approach so they are likely to ignore the court’s ruling. However, the Punjab government said they would step up efforts in the next few days to tackle the fires.
Authorities also parked a van with an air purifier near the Taj Mahal in a bid to clean the atmosphere that in recent years has damaged the marble mausoleum, 150 miles (250km) south of Delhi.
As well as cracking down on farmers, within Delhi itself measures have been introduced to try and lessen the pollution. Construction was halted, firecrackers have been banned and on Monday, a two-week trial scheme was introduced that ruled cars with odd and even numbers plates had to drive on alternate days.
“We read in newspapers about pollution in India and bought masks once we landed in Delhi. The air is really bad here and we are worried about our children,” Neelofar, a tourist from Iran at the Taj Mahal, told AFP.
Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, who said this week that the city had become a “gas chamber”, hailed the first day of the scheme as a success, saying it had taken 1.5m cars off the roads and reduced congestion.
On Monday, Delhi authorities moved to reduce traffic by rolling out a scheme allowing cars with odd and even registration numbers on the roads on alternate days.
Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, who has called the city a “gas chamber”, hailed the first day of the scheme as a success, with 1.5m cars off the roads and traffic reduced.
Two thousand volunteers and more than 465 police and transport officials were deployed at intersections, handing out fines of 4,000 rupees (nearly $60) to 259 transgressors.
They included Vijay Goel, of Narendra Modi’s ruling party, who flouted the law in his saffron sports utility vehicle to protest against what called a “stunt” before upcoming city elections.
Exempt from the restrictions were Delhi’s 7mmotorbikes and scooters, public transport vehicles, and cars carrying only women, stoking criticism that the measures were token.
Siddharth Singh, a climate policy expert, called the traffic restrictions “ineffective”.
“If air pollution was solely due to the vehicular traffic, then this would be a solution. Right now it cannot be a solution because motorised private transport has a very small share in the whole pie,” Singh told AFP.
Stubble burning is believed to account for nearly half the pollution.
Fourteen Indian cities including the capital are among the world’s top 15 most polluted cities, according to the WHO.
One study last year said that 1 million Indians died prematurely every year as a result.
