New Delhi: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Friday said that stubble burning does not have a significant impact on the meteorological conditions Delhi-NCR.
As per the official data, Punjab has cultivated 20.76 lakh hectares of land for non-basmati in the year 2020-21, as compared to 22.91 lakh hectares used in 2019-20. Similarly, Haryana cultivated 4.27 lakh hectares instead of 6.48 lakh hectares.
While addressing a press briefing, CPCB Member Secretary Prashant Gargava said, "This year cultivation of non-basmati is less in Punjab and Haryana. We are expecting that this time the peak contribution of stubble may not coincide with peak adverse metrology in Delhi."
He explained about the contribution of stubble burning in causing air pollution in Delhi-NCR, "The contribution of Stubble burning depends upon various factors, including emissions from the burning of crop residue, wind direction, wind speed. It had contributed 6% in the air pollution on October 15."
"The contribution of stubble burning lasts for 35-40 days. It goes beyond 15 per cent contribution for almost 15 days and rest of the time, it contributes to less than 10 per cent in the air pollution," the CPCB official further added.
He also asserted that the meteorological conditions in Delhi have been extremely unfavourable for the dispersion of pollutants since September as the PM10 concentration between September 1 and October 14 is more as compared to the corresponding period of last year.
On Thursday, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had claimed that stubble burning contributes to only 4 per cent of air pollution, due to which a war of words broke out between him and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who said that "staying in denial will not help" in addressing the problem.
Taking on him on social media, Kejriwal tweeted, "If stubble burning causes only 4% pollution then why has the pollution suddenly increased in last fortnight? The air was clean before that. Same story every year. There is no massive jump in any local source of pollution in the last few days to cause this spike."
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When asked about the matter, Vimlendu Jha, an environmental expert and founder of activist group Swechha, told ETV Bharat, "This contribution of stubble burning on air pollution depends on each day. Union Minister was right to some extent. A lot of pollution on a particular day varies from 5-10 per cent and on someday when there is high wind flowing from Punjab or Haryana, it can peak to around 30-40 per cent, as per last year's study of SAFAR."
He also asserted that stubble burning is not the main reason why Delhi's air is polluted as the city has many local issues which contribute to almost 95% of the air pollution and stubble burning only aggregates the situation.
"If stubble burning was the main problem then air quality index of January will not be 800-900 which we see. If only for 30 days that stubble burning aggregates the problem. It's the local problem that needs to be addressed which is not been addressed systematically, holistically, comprehensively by the Central Government or the state governments," he said.
Environment Ministry has also deployed 50 teams of CPCB for inspection in Delhi-NCR areas, on October 15, to do extensive field visits to stop major air polluting sources. Graded Response Action Plan has also been implemented in the Delhi-NCR area to curb air pollution.
When asked about various steps taken by the Government, if these will be effective to tackle the current situation of air pollution, Jha replied, "In the few years, there has been a marginal improvement in air quality because of the peripheral highway, usage of BS-VI fuels, shutting of 1-2 thermal power plants within Delhi. But is too little as compared to the kind of problem we are facing. If both the Central as well as State Government had done the needful then the air quality index would not have been 350-400 and it's only going to get worse in the upcoming weeks."
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