₹2,680 Cr. = 30% Less Pollution in Delhi-NCR? 🤔

-

 Sounds crazy, right? But the solution to a massive chunk of our pollution problem is that simple.


I recently did a deep dive into pollution - Seasonal factors, Non-Seasonal factors, Stubble Burning, Firecrackers, and other usual suspects.


Why do the farmers burn stubble?

It's fast and free.


Do they have an alternative?

Cut and bale; converting into manure; or super-seeding etc.


But they are not cheap - These cost approx. 4000 per acre (on the higher side) for a farmer if they rent the machinery.


Any common man's economic sense will say to go for burning, so does the farmers'.

And Let's be honest, even farmers don't like the black smoke it creates, I have experienced being on fields while burning - You can hardly stand nearby.


So, I did a normal calculation

Paddy fields in Punjab ~32 Lakh x 4000 = 1280 Cr.

Paddy fields in Haryana ~35 Lakh x 4000 = 1400 Cr.


Just a spending of ~2680 Cr. INR by the Govt. - Either State or Centre - to provide machinery support.


2680 Cr. - a miniscule amount compared to the government’s other expenditures. To put it in perspective:


- CG launched a scheme to lure votes of small and marginal farmers by paying them a yearly sum of INR 6000; Cost - 75000 Cr.

- CG has spent 10000 Cr. for the promotion of EVs under FAME in preceding 3 years.

- And pollution’s cost? Priceless. The health hazards, economic losses, and environmental damage are far costlier.


This small spend could mean ~30% cleaner air for Delhi-NCR.


Think about it: a problem we rant about every year has a fix this straightforward. Isn’t it worth it?


So, what’s stopping us? 🛑

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IPO Frenzy: A Hidden Leading Indicator?

-
Image
 An IPO boom is seen as market's positive sentiment. News outlets and influencers flood us with stories of high listing gains from IPOs. We often confuse it with the whole market going green forward. But data tells a different story: 1. IPOs squeeze liquidity from market - Listings, either primary or secondary, put money in the hands of company for expansion or the shareholders; leading to a cash outflow from the secondary market. 2. Correlation - I analyzed the last 18 years (2007-2024) of Nifty 50 returns against the annual number of IPOs and amount of Capital Raised. The statistical correlation between them: Nifty 50 returns against the annual number of IPOs +0.12 Nifty 50 returns against the Amount of Capital Raised +0.09 A correlation of +0.12 and +0.09 indicates a very weak positive relationship. In simple terms, knowing the Nifty's return for a year gives you almost no ability to predict the number of IPOs. But this gets interesting when we try to predict the Nifty's...
Read more

Middle East Crisis - Oil or something else?

-
Image
Next time you hear about conflicts or gas pipe shutdowns in the middle east, remember, it’s not just about your car or electricity bill — it’s about the food on your plate, and millions of Indian farmers. Whenever we talk about tensions in the Middle East, everyone immediately jumps to oil and logistical disturbances. But here's the twist — it's fertilizers that we need to start worrying about. And for India, it's a big deal. Here's how it connects The Middle East isn't just about oil; it’s also a fertilizer powerhouse, especially for nitrogen-based fertilizers like urea (made from natural gas). Now with conflicts disrupting natural gas supply (especially after recent tensions involving Israel, Iran, and Egypt), fertilizer plants in the Middle East have shut down. That’s squeezed the global supply — and prices are already rising. (Refer Image) We are the second-highest fertilizer consumer in the world. And for some more than half of it is imported. For some types —...
Read more

TikTok, Trump, and the World’s Weirdest Love Triangle

-
Image
A national weapon. A national threat. A political strategy. The Tiktok-Trump saga is an epic case of how a naive start-up became the epitome of geo-political tug-of-war between world's 2 biggest powers. That start-up marked a turning point in how we consume content globally. ByteDance (parent of Tiktok) founded in 2012, launched a short video app - "Douyin" for Chinese market in 2016. The app named as TikTok for international market was launched in 2017. In 2018, it was among the most downloaded app. The growth was immense, establishing it among the top social media platforms. Here are some key stats that frame the power of social media in today’s world: - 5.24 billion people (63.9% of the global population) currently use social media worldwide, up more than double from 2.07 billion in 2015 - The average social media user engages with an average of 6.83 various social media platforms - Globally, the average time a person spends on social media a day is 2 hours 21 minutes ...
Read more