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Polluted air isn’t restricted by borders, collective responsibility to keep environment clean: Khattar
Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar claimed that people in his state as well as in Delhi were suffering with Punjab reporting several cases of crop-residue burning
Polluted air is not restricted by borders, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Wednesday and claimed that people in his state as well as in Delhi were suffering with Punjab reporting several cases of crop-residue burning. He, however, stressed there should not be politics over the issue and that it is the collective responsibility of everyone to keep the environment clean.
The air quality in Delhi and its adjoining areas in the National Capital Region (NCR) worsened on Wednesday morning, with smoke from post-harvest paddy straw burning in neighbouring states accounting for one-third of the air pollution in the national capital. “There should be no politics. Unfortunately, a few people are doing politics over it, but they are not getting any benefit...,” the chief minister said when asked by reporters in Pinjore on a Supreme Court bench on Tuesday taking a stern view of states trying to shift the blame on one another, and observing there cannot be a “political battle” all the time.
Khattar said that “as you are saying we have controlled the situation in Haryana to a large extent and whatever is remaining (stubble burning cases being reported) we will control those”.
Punjab is reporting several cases of stubble burning, but the people of Haryana and Delhi are also suffering, he said and added that “polluted air is not restricted by boundaries”.
“When there are stubble burning cases in Punjab, its impact is suffered by people of Haryana and Delhi too,” Khattar said after inaugurating a hot air balloon nature safari in Pinjore.
“I appeal to all, be it Arvind Kejriwal (Delhi chief minister) or Bhagwant Mann (Punjab chief minister), if there is need for any assistance, we are ready to help. This is not a political issue. We have to keep our environment clean, which is necessary for everyone’s health...,” he said. The Aam Aadmi Party is in power in Delhi as well as Punjab.
Chief minister Khattar said that farmers should be given facilities and equipment as today there is commercial use of crop stubble in industries, in energy projects, in making ethanol, in thermal plants, all of which needs to be further explored.
He said that the Haryana government has taken several steps to bring down incidents of stubble burning and has been incentivising farmers to prevent them from burning crop residue.
Many works are affected due to bad air quality, and normal life gets affected as schools have to be shut at some places, work-from-home has to be implemented in some offices, and the odd-even system issue is going on, he said.
