- The Supreme Court on January 29, 2018, agreed on the Central Government’s proposed plan to end stubble burning in Haryana, Punjab and Western UP.
- The Supreme court in its order, asked the government to follow the deadline fixed by the high level task force.
- On November 23, 2017, a high level task force, headed by the principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for management of air pollution in Delhi and NCR, was constituted by the Central Cabinet Secretariat. The report was submitted on December 18, 2017 and latter the Supreme court mandated Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) looked into the report.
Main features of the plan
- Farmers will be offered 50% subsidy to purchase machines for management of paddy residue without burning it.
- A subsidy of 75% will be offered to co-operative societies, custom hiring centres, farmers’ interest groups or gram panchayats for buying such machines.
- Governments of Haryana, Punjab and UP will work out the hiring charges with these organisations to rent out the machines to farmers.
- The high level committee’s report has fixed September 2018 as the deadline to make the machines available.
What is the issue: On November 13, 2017. lawyer R.K. Kapoor had brought the Delhi and NCR air pollution issue before a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra, seeking direction to tackle the annual air pollution crisis in the national capital. In its petition, Kapoor had sought immediate action against stubble burning and construction dust.
