On Tuesday, India's Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri inaugurated Asia's largest Compressed Biogas plant in Punjab -- a northern Indian state infamous for farm fires.
As per the government's estimate, the 20-acre plant will consume 100,000 tons of paddy straw daily, providing a sense of relief to people complaining about the deadly smog every year.
"Plant will reduce stubble burning of 40,000 – 45,000 acres of fields, translating into an annual reduction of 150,000 tons of CO2 emissions," Puri said.
The plant is established by German firm Verbio AG, with an investment of approximately $27 million.
A government study suggests that smoke from farm fires in neighboring Punjab and Haryana states accounts for nearly a quarter of Delhi’s winter air pollution.
Nearly 30 million metric tons of paddy straw are created in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana. Despite implementing stringent laws to stop burning off the "stubble" - the stalks left in arable land after the harvest - about 23 million metric tons of paddy straw were burned in fields last year. Farmers torch the residual to prepare their land for the next sowing season.
As per a Lancet study, toxic air killed 1.67 million people, 18 percent of all fatalities, in India in 2019.