While hearing on pollution control in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court has said that the Air Quality Management Commission or the state governments formed to suggest and implement measures for pollution control did not make any effort to ensure compliance with the instructions.
A bench headed by Justice AS Oka directed the state governments to file a status report on the latest situation within a week. The next hearing of the case will be held on October 16. The Supreme Court said that an expert should be appointed in the Air Quality Management Commission. During the hearing today, the Air Quality Management Commission said that in the first 15 days of September, there were 129 incidents of stubble burning in Punjab and 81 in Haryana.
The Commission said that Delhi-NCR has more stringent emission standards and norms than the national standard regarding pollution. In the financial year 2024-25, Rs 150 crore was released for Punjab and Rs 75 crore for Haryana to purchase crop management equipment for farmers. Apart from this, the Commission has issued 83 statutory instructions and 15 consultations in addition to various orders, guidelines and official communications from time to time since its inception.
Along with this, instructions have been given to close 1,099 units violating the rules at different places. Regional review meetings were held in 2024, in which several meetings of the full commission and sub-committees were held. The Commission said that a guiding framework was created in June 2021 to deal with the burning of paddy stubble. Crop diversification, Basmati and low-straw paddy, in-situ crop residue management are being promoted.
Farmers are provided 50 % subsidy for the purchase of crop residue management machinery. On September 27, the Supreme Court had criticised the Air Quality Management Commission for failing to stop stubble burning in the neighboring states of Delhi. The court had told the Air Quality Management Commission that the law is not being followed.
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