Supreme Court to government: Deny MSP to those lighting farm fires

Supreme Court to government: Deny MSP to those lighting farm fires

NEW DELHI: Sending a clear “stick must follow the carrot” message to farmers whose refusal to stop stubble-burning has been a major factor behind air pollution in the national capital region, the Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested that the Centre stop buying their crop so that they are denied the benefit of minimum support price (MSP).

“Why should any purchase be made under the Minimum Support Price system from people violating the orders and lighting fires, regardless of how this affects the life of people, children? The stick must also follow the carrot. Why should people, who despite all observations of the court, continue violating the law be allowed to benefit monetarily? People who have been identified as having lit fires should not be allowed to sell their products under this system. There should be something that pinches them,” said a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia.

“It is submitted that provision or revocation of MSP, involves extremely intricate economic and policy considerations, and is assessed in depth by the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), which is the expert body tasked with the same. Any variations in the same, or selective implementation would require a very detailed study by the said experts as it is likely to have very far-reaching consequences on food security and other issues related to economic stability. It is therefore most respectfully submitted that the same may not be resorted to,” it said.

The bench, which is monitoring the steps taken by the central government and states of NCR region to control the pollution level, also emphasised that the Centre and Punjab government must try to promote alternative crops to replace rice cultivation which has depleted water levels in the state and leads to stubble burning. The court said the persistence with paddy cultivation will have a disastrous impact in the long term and appealed to both the Centre and Punjab to refrain from indulging in politics and to put their heads together to solve the potential problem.

“We want farm fires stopped, we want air quality to get better and we want long-term measures for crop replacement. You do it however you want. We are not saying follow this solution or that. But if you don’t, we will take the officers concerned to task,” the bench observed.

The Punjab government told the bench that it had registered around 1,000 FIRs against farmers for indulging in stubble burning and is taking all steps to control it. It said the government has made 618 red entries which debar farmers from taking benefits in their ‘jamabandis’ but people are taking to the streets in protest which is creating a law and order problem.

Filing a status report, the Centre also informed the court that there is a 32% reduction in stubble-burning incidents in Punjab and 39% in Haryana compared to the previous year. It, however, said in absolute terms, stubble burning incidents in Punjab are still very high and account for more than 90% of the cases.

The Centre submitted that the crux of the problem appears to be the lack of adequate implementation at the ground level— not only of the steps suggested by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) but also of the schemes put in place by it to reduce stubble-burning. “It is revealed that the enforcement scenario in Haryana is far better, with 100% of the fields having stubble burning being inspected and the Environmental Compensation (EC) having been imposed in nearly 80% of the cases as opposed to about 20% in Punjab,” the status report said.

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