View: India's choking Diwali smoke billows from a failed farm policy
India’s festival of light.
Delhi is one of the world’s most polluted cities at the best of times, but in the days leading up to Sunday's Diwali festival the gloom is deepening.
To the usual fumes from 8 million cars and weather conditions that stop haze from dissipating, you can add the smoke from millions of contraband fireworks — and the soot from tens of thousands of rice paddies that go up in flames at the turn of the season.
Diwali likely originated as a harvest celebration, and farmers in the states surrounding India’s capital still burn off the stubble in their rice fields at this time of year because it’s a quick and cheap way of preparing the ground for the winter wheat crop.
The cost is paid by the hundreds of millions of people living in the rice-wheat belt, who must breathe in air so laden with particulates that it’s equivalent to a pack-a-day cigarette habit.
This year, schools in Delhi have suspended in-person classes and government employees are working from home. Construction and demolition in the capital is being banned temporarily, while drivers will be allowed to use their vehicles only on alternate days in an attempt to limit exhaust gases.
All of this is a sign that years of efforts by governments in Delhi and its neighboring states have failed to fix farm policies that are making one of the world’s biggest cities unlivable.
The main focus of efforts to end the stubble-burning in recent years has been mechanization. Governments in the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab surrounding the capital have offered subsidies as high as 50% for farmers to buy the Happy Seeder, Super Seeder and other devices.
