“How can we pay when the centre is not giving?” the minister asked. However, subsequently, Punjab Agriculture minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said the plan to give cash incentives to farmers not to burn crop stubble had been shelved in its entirety. “But doesn’t matter, even if the central government doesn’t help us, we will go ahead with our contributions and also ask every one of our officers to spread awareness (about the harms from burning) and inform farmers that they should not light fires,” he added. “The central government has rejected our proposal,” Mann said, speaking in the video in Punjabi. Mann said the proposal calls for the central government to cover Rs 1500 of the cost of the no-burn incenteive, while the Punjab and Delhi state governments would each add Rs 500 per acre – in light of the huge health impacts the stubble burning has downwind – including in New Delhi, India’s capital city, and the greater Delhi metropolitan area, India’s second largest. Punjab chief minister claims central government nixed farmer incentives One AAP spokesperson referred us back to a YouTube video of a speech made by the Punjab Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann, in which Mann said that the state government has asked the central government for help in paying farmers the no-burn cash incentive. Specific questions sent by Health Policy Watch to AAP leaders and spokespersons, including chairperson of the Delhi Assembly’s environment committee and legislative assembly member Atishi Marlena, were either ignored or given generic responses. The party has been unable to explain why – although it’s likley attributable to the deep political rivalries that exist between the centre-left AAP, now controlling Punjab state and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which controls the government today. Now that the AAP had taken control of Punjab with a sweeping majority, the party had all the power to stop farm fires – whose toxic drifts southward towards Delhi in early and mid-winter, setting off choking pollution crises in the city for more than a decade.īut the AAP’s proposal that the central government, the Punjab state government and the Delhi state government jointly pay farmers a cash incentive of Rs 2500 per acre – not to burn crop residue appears to have already fallen through. Satellite image of northern India on 26 October 2020 shows the Delhi region with “very poor” to “severe” air quality, largely as a result of of crop burning in Punjab, whose capital is Chandigarh. For years, the AAP has loudly, aggressively and publicly blamed the INC for the winter pollution peaks in Delhi and northern India, saying that the Congress-ruled Punjab government has been unable to control fires set by farmers to prepare their fields for winter sowing. Even though this scheme failed to deliver – some research showed pollution actually increased during this period – the AAP succeeded in raising awareness about air pollution and making it a mainstream issue.īut it was the second reason that gave activists cause for optimism this season. It even experimented with implementing an odd-even road-sharing plan for vehicles in the high pollution season in early 2016. First, of all Indian political parties, the AAP, which came into power in Delhi in 2013, was one of the earliest to acknowledge the health harm of air pollution and speak out most openly about the need to reduce this environmental toxin. There were two primary reasons for this optimism. NEW DELHI – When India’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) won elections in the northern state of Punjab in March, decisively wresting power away from the Indian National Congress (INC) and defeating the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, clean air advocates and activists were optimistic that the burning of crop stubble by Punjab farmers – the biggest contributor to Delhi’s recurring autumn and winter air pollution spikes – would finally be tackled and a real solution found. Aam Admi Party leaders Bhagwant Mann (centre), the Punjab chief minister, and Arvind Kejrwal (left), chief minister of Delhi.
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