6 pollution sources and how to fix them

NEW DELHI: Would it help if paddy was substituted by other crops such as pulses and vegetables in Haryana and Punjab in order to control emission from crop stubble burning? It might, thinks Indicus Foundation, a Delhi think tank, which released a report called “Fixing Delhi’s Pollution” on Thursday. Such crops would not leave behind stubble after harvesting and, therefore, would not burden farmers financially for its removal.

The Indicus team of economists pointed out that “there are three types of solutions — substitute, stop or clean— and where substitution is possible and the incentives are in sync with the objective, it is the most preferred method”. It cautioned that banning or stopping any activity implied economic losses by way of reduced incomes and jobs and countering pollution through cleaning, say, by vacuum cleaning roads and using artificial rain, was also expensive and tedious. What the team recommended, therefore, was substituting a pollution source with a less polluting one.

These three principles of fighting pollution can be applied to sources of air pollution, inefficient technologies and even to wasteful lifestyle. High sulphur fuel from vehicles, which is also responsible for higher particulate matter (PM) emissions, can, for example, be replaced by low sulphur fuels, stoves using solid fuels can be replaced by LPG stoves and individuals can move from using private cars to taking public transport. The report admitted that lifestyle changes were difficult to institute, “as was recently seen in the court-ordered ban on firecrackers”. However, it also said that they did not always fail. “Lifestyle changes have been known to occur spontaneously through social movements and religion backed mandates,” the report said.

Given the context, the Indicus report has presented a number of practical solutions to crop stubble burning, road and construction dust, vehicular pollution, coal and fly ash, industrial emissions and solid waste burning. The report, which sourced data from various scientific studies, organisations like the Centre for Science and Environment , The Energy and Resources Institute, citizens groups and pollution-monitoring agencies, recommended that the Centre incentivise the sowing of crops other than paddy to address crop stubble burning, introduce a pollution cess on high-sulphur fuel, ensure 100% disposal of fly ash by using it in the brick-making industry and make local police and municipal corporation officials accountable for waste burning.

“Solutions exist, they require coordination among governments. The experience of other countries shows that such coordination is possible,” argued Laveesh Bhandari, economist and head of Indicus Foundation.

For instance, the 27 coal-fired power plants in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, most with small units of 210 MW or lower, could mandatorily ensure use of filters to remove fly ash from emissions, increase use of washed, or better quality, coal at least in winter and use technologies such as flue gas desulphurisation and fly ash pond management to prevent dispersal of fly ash.

Vidhi, a legal research organisation, had also recently released a report that said the prohibition on burning crop stubble was ineffective in Punjab and Haryana because authorities lacked resources and personnel to enforce the ban and keep track of violations. It added that farmers had not been adequately incentivised, or disincentivised to not burn harvest remnants. Many farmer groups, such as Bhartiya Kisan Union, have demanded that the central government give incentives for cultivating crops that are geographically suited to the region in place of paddy.