Stubble burning—a common farming practice where the remains of a summer harvest are burnt to prepare the fields for winter crops—has long led to plummeting air quality in the nation’s capital and surrounding states. However, a development by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in Pusa, Delhi could now allow residents to breathe easy. Instead of burning stubble, farmers are being offered the Pusa Decomposer capsule. Each capsule, containing seven species of fungi, is converted into a biochemical liquid and sprayed on stubble to decompose it in around 20 to 25 days.According to Dr Y. V. Singh, principal scientist, IARI division of microbiology, “The four capsules in a pouch can be used to make 25 litres of solution that can then be used on 2.5 acres of field. This will help in curbing the practice of crop burning and can be used in all forms on any farm.” Such a low-cost, sustainable solution that promises to improve air quality and enrich the soil in the long term may be just what the nation needed a. How is Delhi and the neighbouring states affected by stubble burning?
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Stubble burning in northern India has long been a major cause of air pollution, but efforts to stop it fail every year. The BBC's Krutika Pathi and Arvind Chhabra find out why.
Plumes of smoke from Avtar Singh's paddy fields envelop his village in Punjab state's Patiala district. Mr Singh has just finished burning left-over straw - known as stubble - to clear the soil for the next crop.
The smoke is likely to travel as far as Delhi, some 250km (155 miles) away, adding to the national capital's toxic haze. It's not just Delhi that suffers. Stubble burning has created a massive public health crisis - its fumes pollute swathes of northern India and endanger the health of hundreds of millions of people.
And it's more dangerous this year with Covid-19 ravaging the country as pollution makes people more vulnerable to infection and slows their recovery. According to some estimates, farmers in northern India burn about 23 million tonnes of paddy stubble every year.
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Governments have tried to stop the practice. They've pitched alternatives, they've banned it, they've fined farmers for continuing to do it and they've even thrown a few of them in jail.
They've also tried to reward good behaviour - in 2019, the Supreme Court ordered a clutch of northern states to give 2,400 rupees ($32; £24) per acre to every farmer who didn't burn stubble.
Mr Singh, who didn't do it last year, was hoping to get this reward. "We waited a whole year, but we got nothing," he says. "So, like many others, I decided to burn the stubble this year."
In August, the Punjab government admitted they couldn't afford to pay so many farmers. "I don't know any farmer who has been paid this," says Charandeep Grewal, a farmer.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Every winter, capital Delhi and surrounding areas battle a haze of pollution
As pollution levels grow, so has the chasm between the country's farmers and policy-makers, who are trying to fix a broken system that has incentivised bulk production over the decades.
Experts say it's partly due to policies that encourage farmers to grow more and not less. A spate of farmer-friendly decisions and cheap subsidies in the 1960s turned Punjab and Haryana into India's biggest contributors of food grains.
But unlike then, India's granaries are no longer empty and the system, which has changed little, is now at loggerheads with strained efforts to clean up the air.
The solutions that haven't stuck
What complicates matters is that farmers are a crucial vote bank. That's why court orders like bans and heavy fines often remain unenforced. "The politicians who need to enforce it would have to risk the ire of thousands of farmers - which they won't do," says agricultural economist Avinash Kishore.
Meanwhile, farmers continue to avail free electricity and heavy subsidies on paddy fertiliser.
"The behaviour of farmers depends on the policies you put into place. Things like free electricity and cheap fertilisers are causing havoc," says agricultural economist Ashok Gulati.
But farmers say they get the lion's share of the blame, although their stubble is only one of many sources of Delhi's air pollution. Others include dust, industrial and vehicular emissions, and incineration.
Weather plays a role too. Farmers burn stubble twice a year - in summer and at the onset of winter. The first time they do it, the warm breeze disperses it quickly. But the second time, in September or October, plummeting temperatures and low wind speed spread the smoke far and wide.

oye pgli!!
i was just kidding
don't take it seriously...xD
why shall i forget u
i couldn't reply
as i am having exams still now
it would end on 30th..