"Stubble burning is less an environmental problem than a symptom of a distorted incentive structure in Indian agriculture." Discuss.

Stubble burning means setting fire to paddy residue in Punjab and Haryana each October–November, and its most visible effect is Delhi-NCR's winter smog. The fires come back every season despite subsidised machines and a statutory regulator. That suggests the fire is the end result of distorted farm economics, though its environmental harm is still real.

Burning as a symptom of distorted incentives

• Assured MSP procurement of paddy and wheat locks farmers into the water-hungry paddy-wheat cycle. Other crops come with no similar price certainty.
• The Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009 delays transplanting to save groundwater. This squeezes the time left before wheat sowing, and burning is the quickest way to clear the field.
• Skewed subsidy design: the CRM scheme pays 50% of a machine's cost to individual farmers and 80% to Custom Hiring Centres [1]. Large farmers can afford to own machines, while small farmers have to queue for hired ones in the same peak weeks.
• Recurring costs: diesel, operator and rent must be paid every season, while a matchstick costs nothing. CAQM itself had to order mapping of machines and of how available they are to small and marginal farmers [3].

Why it remains an environmental problem

• Air: burning releases particulate matter, CO and VOCs, which feed North India's winter smog. This public-health cost falls on people who gain nothing from paddy.
• Soil: burning destroys organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur and soil moisture, which weakens long-term soil health.
• Inter-state airshed: the smoke crosses State borders, which is why a statutory body was needed. Under the CAQM Act, 2021, CAQM directs in-situ and ex-situ management in hotspot districts [4].
• Enforcement works partly: fire incidents fell by more than 90% in 2025 compared with 2022 [2]. However, satellite fire counts can miss burning that happens under cloud cover.

Stubble burning is therefore an environmental harm whose roots lie in how farm incentives are designed. Since 2018-19, ₹3,698.45 crore and more than 3.23 lakh machines [1] have mostly treated the symptom. A lasting fix would:

• give maize and pulses price support comparable to paddy
• pay CHCs for the area actually cleared without fire, rather than for machines bought
• create assured buyers for straw, such as bio-CNG plants and biomass co-firing

Aligning farm incentives with Article 48A and SDG 12 would turn residue into a resource rather than a recurring fire.