The pollution level continued to remain a cause of concern in Haryana and Punjab on Saturday, with several districts reporting air quality indices in the “very poor” and “poor” categories.
Gurgaon and Faridabad in Haryana were the worst-affected cities, reporting air quality index (AQI) at 372 and 369 respectively, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
The air quality in Manesar and Rohtak was 338 each, while it was 326 and 311 in Jind and Bahadurgarh respectively. Hisar and Panipat reported their respective AQIs at 287 and 292, the CPCB said.
Punjab reported air quality in the “poor” and “moderate” categories. The respective AQIs in Amritsar, Bathinda, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala stood at 251, 103, 158, 158 and 117, as per the data.
Chandigarh witnessed air quality index at 144.
An AQI between 0-50 is considered “good”, 51-100 “satisfactory”, 101-200 “moderate”, 201-300 “poor”, 301-400 “very poor”, and 401-500 “severe”. Above 500 is “severe-plus” or “emergency” category.
The number of incidents of farm fire, considered a major reason for the pollution in the state and neighbouring areas, including Delhi, have dropped significantly in Punjab and Haryana over the past few days, officials said.
On Friday, a total of 91 stubble burning incidents took place, an official of the Ludhiana-based Punjab Remote Sensing Centre said.
In all, the total stubble burning incidents between September 23 and November 15 in Punjab were 48,780, as compared to 46,545 in corresponding period last year.
Haryana has reported a total of over 6,000 incidents of farm fires in this season so far.
On Friday, the Punjab government had said it disbursed over Rs 19 crore to 29,343 non-basmati paddy cultivating small and marginal farmers from across the state, who have not burned the paddy residue.
Punjab government had decided to give Rs 2,500 per acre as compensation to those small and marginal farmers who have refrained from burning paddy straw.
In Punjab, more than 1,500 FIRs have been registered against erring farmers for defying the ban and a fine of Rs 3.01 crore imposed on more than 11,000 farmers for stubble burning, while 71 harvesting machines had been impounded.
DUSHYANT WRITES TO HRD MINISTER, WANTS CLIMATE CHANGE IN CURRICULUM
Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala has urged the Minister, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank to include Climate Change and Sustainability Classes in the Education Curriculum.
In a letter sent to Nishank, the Deputy Chief Minister said that keeping in view the fact that Climate Change is one of the major challenges being faced by developing countries including us, which has severe impact on the health of every citizen, therefore Climate Change and Sustainability Classes as a pan of curriculum in Education policy should be introduced throughout the country as it would act as the edifice of our "Safe and Healthy”.
In the sent letter, the Deputy Chief Minister while giving an example of Italy, said that recently, Italy has become the first country to make "Climate Change and Sustainability Classes" compulsory in schools. Thus such learning and awareness should begin right from primary to higher education level so that our future generation would recognise the importance of Climate and Sustainable Development.
In the sent letter, Chautala said has also raised concern over the recent pollution situation in the NCR mode which had converted the whole region as gas chamber.
He said that the alarming situation even made Prime Minister's office, Apex Court to intervene. He said that now, it is high time that we should make collective efforts to find sustainable solutions.
"The root cause of Climate Change has been enhanced pace of unsustainable development coupled with mass consumption of fossil fuels and deforestation. He said that pertinently, these human triggered activities are usually undertaken haphazardly due to the lack of awareness about the negative impacts of the environment," he said in the letter.
