Punjab’s particular program to reduce agricultural waste is experiencing major obstacles as northern India struggles with a severe pollution crisis exacerbated by stubble burning. As a long-term solution to the stubble-burning issue, the government started a plan to establish Compressed Biogas (CBG) Plants which are considered as a sustainable solution to the stubble-burning issue. Nevertheless, the project has been halted by persistent farmer protests, resulting in only five of the thirty-eight facilities that were originally intended to be operational and none running at full capacity, reported India Today.
The CBG plants were intended to be a two-fold solution that would turn agricultural waste including press mud, cow manure and crop stubble into compressed natural gas. The goal of these establishments was to offer a sustainable way to deal with stubble, an agricultural waste product that significantly increases air pollution when burned. Instead of burning their crop residue, farmers were urged to supply it to these plants in the hopes that it would produce biogas and other byproducts while also reducing pollution.
However, the initiative has encountered opposition despite its potential, the India Today report stated. Four CBG plants have had their operations suspended due to protests, with farmers claiming that the plants are causing environmental damage. Additionally, they asserted that the facilities may pollute the air and soil, endangering the health of the surrounding populations. When the team from India Today visited a CBG plant in Gunghrali village (Ludhiana), they discovered that the facility, which had started functioning in 2022, had been stopped since May of this year due to farmer agitations that prevented it from operating.
Plant Operational Head, Pankaj Singh expressed, “The plant was established with the aim of tackling the stubble issue and also helping the environment. Today, Punjab is becoming a threat to the industrial sector. A total of Rs 70 crores was spent on establishing the plant. Although the plant is closed due to protests, we are still paying hefty EMIs and salaries to the employees. Not only this, three other plants in the region are halted, and we have been knocking on doors but nothing has been done by the state.”
“In one season, we get 35 thousand tonnes of stubble. With 30 tonnes of stubble in a day, we manufacture eight tonnes of CNG every day,” he remarked, referring to the plant’s capacity. Only five of the 38 plants that the centre gave to the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) have been able to begin operations. Pankaj Singh even emphasized that the problems with stubble burning would have been fixed long ago if all plants had been in operation.
CBG factories in Samrala, Bhuntri in Ludhiana, and Akhara in Jagraon were forced to close down as a result of the farmer unrest in Punjab. A farmer named Baljit Singh, who originally contributed more than Rs 2 crore to the CBG initiative and had previously given the plants stubble, told India Today TV that misconceptions over the intended use of the plants are to be blamed for the issue. He conveyed, “I had earlier thought about going to Canada, but I invested here in the interest of the environment. However, our farmers did not understand the entire purpose of these plants. We were attached to these plants and the allegations by farmers are baseless. Due to agitation, the plants are closed and as a result, stubble burning is happening rampantly.”
He added that many farmers have returned to stubble burning as a result of the chaos and that the prices for stubble, which were formerly as high as Rs 1,650 per quintal have now decreased to about Rs 150–200. Satellite remote sensing has shown a notable increase in residue-burning events linked to rice harvests in six Indian states, according to data from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). Satellites identified 861 of these occurrences on 2nd November with Punjab leading the list with 379 examples.
9,376 instances of residue burning were reported in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh between 15th September and 2nd November. With 3,916 instances, Punjab topped the list, underscoring its ongoing difficulty with post-harvest waste management. There were 2,302 instances in Madhya Pradesh, 1,272 in Uttar Pradesh, 1,036 in Rajasthan and 838 in Haryana.
The region’s declining air quality is a direct result of the CBG initiative’s setback and continued stubble burning, as per the report. On 1st November, the percentage of Delhi’s air pollution caused by burning residue increased to 35.2% from 27.6% the day before, the highest percentage for this season. The survival of Punjab’s CBG effort is in jeopardy as the smog situation worsens, torn between the prospect of a long-term fix and the realities of protests and ingrained agricultural practices.
