Air quality in the NCR: The burning issue

IN PERSPECTIVE

The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Bill, 2021, was passed by the Lok Sabha on August 4 and by the Rajya Sabha the next day. This was to convert an ordinance on the matter into law. The ordinance was promulgated a second time in April 2021, after the first ordinance on the matter issued in October 2020 had lapsed in March 2021.

An important aspect relating to agriculture in the Bill is that it covers on-farm stubble-burning. This situates the Bill in the ongoing farmer protests. Since the three legislative changes relating to agriculture were passed in Parliament in September 2020, the protesting groups have been against any liability for air pollution being imposed on farmers. In a meeting held in January 2021, the Agriculture Ministry had agreed with the farmers’ demands to exempt stubble-burning from the penal provisions under the ordinance.

Section 14 of the Bill passed by Parliament makes any contravention of the Act an offence punishable with imprisonment which may extend up to five years, or with fine which may be up to Rs 1 crore, or with both. The proviso to this section exempts farmers from this section for causing air pollution by stubble-burning or mismanagement of agricultural residue. However, Section 15 of the Bill states that the Commission may impose and collect environmental compensation from farmers causing air pollution by stubble-burning, at such rate and in such manner, as may be prescribed. Hence, farmers are not absolved of the responsibility of air pollution caused due to stubble-burning on their farms. They will not be put in prison for it, but they will certainly be asked to pay damages. The rules for the same are under preparation by the Environment Ministry.

But the responsibility for stubble-burning is not of the farmers’ alone. The Agriculture Ministry has to play a much bigger role to address the problem at its very root. In fact, framing the problem as merely an environmental issue is problematic in itself. Only when it is recognised as a problem of current policies on agricultural production and the associated perverse incentives can we work on solutions on that front.

The Bill makes it mandatory for the Commission to provide for an effective framework, action plan, and to take appropriate steps for tackling the problem of stubble-burning and monitoring the measures taken by the states to prevent it. Any appeal is to be taken to the National Green Tribunal. The law makes it only optional for the Commission to co-opt a representative of the Union Agriculture Ministry. The geographic focus of the Commission is NCR and its adjoining areas, which are essentially the Green Revolution states.

In 2014, the Agriculture Ministry had announced The National Policy for Management of Crop Residues (NPMCR). The policy acknowledges that on-farm burning of crops adds to the problem of greenhouse and other gas emissions and could aggravate various air-borne/lung diseases. Among other things, it recommends formulation and implementation of suitable law and legislative/policy measures to curb and control the burning of crop residues. Yet, the policy suggests that such laws ought to come from either the Environment Ministry or the state governments. In doing so, it passes the responsibility on to those state agencies. It suggests that the Environment Ministry issue an advisory to various state governments and Union Territories to curb this nuisance of crop residue burning. It also suggests that the state governments take necessary steps to curb the practice of such burning, citing the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, wherein the subject of agriculture falls under the purview of the state governments.

The challenge with both the NPMCR and the current Air Quality Management Bill is that they deal with the end-result of current crop production. Until and unless the crops that generate this quality and quantity of residue are reduced, the problem will not go away.

What India needs is a post-Green Revolution imagination, with a clear strategy to diversify its crop production. It warrants a policy to facilitate a paradigm shift, reducing the cultivation of wheat, paddy and sugarcane. This will address the problems of air pollution, water use and excess production. The change must come from the Agriculture Ministry. Just as the Commerce Ministry announces an EXIM Policy every five years under the Foreign Trade Act of 1992, the Agriculture Ministry could announce a cropping policy for the country every five years.

Till then, the Commission for Air Quality Management will literally be doing just firefighting. Meanwhile, the farmers locked into this situation will now also be confronted by the Centre’s environmental regulatory framework. And the issue burns on in the Kisan Sansad, while the Parliament session winds down.

(The writer is a legal researcher and policy analyst)