Amid worsening pollution levels, Centre and Delhi govt spar over stubble burning

Kejriwal added, “Let’s accept that stubble burning causes huge pollution every year in North India during this time. And let’s all together find a solution sincerely… I am extremely worried that pollution will play havoc coupled with coronavirus.”

To which Javadekar responded in a tweet that his “statement on air pollution has been misinterpreted by a section of the media”.

“Let me clarify, the figures of 4% share of stubble burning in AQI in Delhi pertained to this week. It varies from 4% to 40% during peak stubble burning. At the same time, let us not be in denial that there are several local factors – vehicular pollution, non-agricultural biomass burning, dust, geographical and metrological – that are primarily responsible for high air pollution during winters in Delhi,” he said.

Javadekar was addressing 50 teams of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) that will begin inspecting areas in Delhi-NCR to check sources of emissions and co-ordinate with agencies responsible for controlling them. “I appeal to the Punjab government again that they immediately ensure there is less stubble burning. It impacts the health of people in their state as well,” he said.

Later, the Environment Ministry also tweeted that share of stubble burning changes every day. “Last year, between October 8 and December 9, the share of stubble burning in air pollution in Delhi, as per SAFAR data, was greater than 15% on six days, while on a single day it was greater than 40%,” it said.

On Thursday, contribution of farm fires to PM 2.5 rose to 6% – up from 3% on Tuesday and 1% on Wednesday – as per data from the Centre’s SAFAR air quality and weather forecasting system.

The coming days

As per a forecast from the India Meteorological Department, wind direction over Delhi at present has changed to east-south east and is expected to remain in this direction until at least October 18. This means emissions from stubble burning, which is happening in north-west of the country, will not enter Delhi unless winds start blowing from the north-west direction.

However, wind speed continues to remain low during day time and almost zero at night, because of which pollutants from local and external sources that have entered Delhi’s air will not be easily dispersed, said Kuldeep Srivastava, head of IMD’s regional weather forecasting centre.

A forecast from SAFAR states that Delhi’s air quality index would remain in ‘very poor’ category on Friday as well.

Meanwhile, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai wrote to CPCB and Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control Authority (EPCA)) asking that 11 thermal power plants within 300 km of Delhi should be closed in seven days if they do not comply with revised emission norms set by the environment ministry.