New Delhi, June 7, 2024: The states of Haryana and Punjab keep on making a buzz around stubble burning and increasing the air pollution, however, this may change very soon as the Haryana government is planning to create a robust infrastructure in the state with a Rs 10,000 crore investment from the World Bank to combat air pollution.
The project, which is known as the Haryana Clean Air Project for Sustainable Development, will be rolled out soon with its implementation in a phased manner.The first phase will commence from the districts falling in the National Capital Region (NCR) and later on replicated in entire state.
The ten-year project was announced by Haryana Chief Secretary TVSN Prasadin a meeting of the governing committee of Haryana Clean Air Project for Sustainable Development held recently.
The project will be implemented with three focus areas that involves enhancements to Haryana's air quality monitoring infrastructure in the initial phase. This includes setting up a cutting-edge laboratory with modernizing four existing labs. Furthermore, to oversee the project’s implementation, a dedicated programme management team will also be established. Under the initiative, training programmes will be run for stakeholders engaged in air quality management.
Through the project, the government sees a good merit in sectoral interventions and thus, will allocate a major part of its resources to address the issues of transportation, construction and road dust, industry, household pollution and biomass burning.
Another major focus of the project will be to shift the vehicles on the road to run on cleaner energy and increasing green spaces in urban areas by setting up biodiversity parks and green belts. To combat the vehicular pollution into the air, the government plans to promote cleaner vehicles on roads by electrifying public transportation for intra-city and inter-city commute and incentivize the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) for private use.
Higher incentives will be offered to older and more polluting vehicles to scrap them in exchange for EVs. Furthermore, automated testing stations (ATS) to monitor vehicular health will also be established in the state. Not only the automobile sector, but the industries will also be encouraged to run on cleaner and greener fuels. Be it shifting to clean fuels for boilers procuring gen sets that comply with stricter emission standards, the government will provide financial incentives to the industry to switch to cleaner energy based-operations in every aspect.
Lastly, the project aims to address stubble burning by promoting in-situ crop residue management practices. This entails educating individuals about the advantages of utilizing bio-decomposers to hasten the breakdown of crop residue, thus diminishing the necessity for burning.
