Aam Aadmi Party's Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha on Tuesday demanded a Rs 2,500 per acre financial support to farmers of Punjab to compensate them for the cost of disposing crop stubble instead of burning the waste which is choking the air across north India.

Raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention in the Rajya Sabha, he said the short-term solution to the problem is to pay farmers an amount that will help them deploy machines to clear stubble left after crops are harvested.

The long-term solution is crop diversification - moving away from paddy to sowing cotton, mazie, edible oil, etc, he said.

"North India is covered in a blanket of smoke... air pollution is not just an issue of Delhi but a problem also faced throughout north India," he said.

Air in Bhagalpur, Muzaffarnagar, Noida, Hapur, Bhiwani, Bhiwadi, Agra and Faridabad is more polluted than in Delhi, he claimed adding the blame for this is often put on farmers.

An IIT study states that stubble burning is one of the reasons for air pollution but is not the only or sole reason, he said.

But the blame is entirely levied on farmers and they are often persecuted with demands of even arrests for burning parali or leftover straw after harvesting grains, he alleged.

"No farmer would burn parali out of choice. He does it because of compulsions," he said adding stubble burning has seen a 70 per cent decline in AAP-ruled Punjab this year while the incidents have risen in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan (all ruled by BJP).

Going into the root cause of the problem, Chaddha said Punjab, despite not being a rice-eating state, started paddy cultivation to feed the needs of the country.

This has badly impacted the state - soil has degraded and the groundwater table has fallen to 600 feet.

"Farmers have just 10-12 days to clear the stubble left after harvesting of paddy crop as the next has to be sown (to catch the fair weather window)," he said. "If parali is not cleared in 10-12 days, the yield of the next crop falls." And this is the reason why farmers are forced to burn stubble.

Alternatives to this such as Happy Seeder or Paddy Straw Chopper prove to be expensive as operating such machines entails a cost of Rs 2,000-3,000 per acre, he said.

"If farmers of Punjab and Haryana are paid Rs 2,500 per acre, no farmer of Punjab will burn paralli," he said. "The central government should give Rs 2,000 and Punjab government will give Rs 500." Brij Lal of BJP said parali can be converted into manure using a decomposer, used as pellets in thermal power stations or fed to cattle.

Samik Bhattacharya (BJP) raised the issue of illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants squatting on the north side of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) in Kolkata.

"It is a serious security threat," he said, adding four police complaints have been made but no action has been taken.

Amid protests from TMC MPs, he alleged that the state government was welcoming Rohingya refugees. "Internal security of West Bengal is under threat because of the callous attitude of the state government." Shaktisinh Gohil (Cong) demanded a CBI inquiry into a hospital in Ahmedabad conducting angiography and angioplasty procedures on healthy unsuspecting poor to get paid from the the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.

Two people have died in such procedures, he said alleging collusion of local authorities in the scam.

No compensation is enough in such a crime and only a CBI inquiry under an independent judicial mandate can only bring out the truth, he said.

Ajeet Madhavrao Gopchade (BJP) asked the government to take strict action against illegal online gambling and betting which were proving to be fronts for money laundering and financing terror.

This is a threat to national security, he said.

Ayodhya Rami Reddy Alla of YSRCP raised the issue of India's "disappointing" performance at the recently concluded Paris Olympics where it ranked 71 in overall medals tally.

Ajit Kumar Bhuyan (IND) voiced concerns over state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) shifting some of the functions of its Assam assets, such as tendering, finace and logistics, to places outside the state.

This, he said, has led to a strong resentment among the locals and no function of Assam assets should be shifted to outside the state.

Dhananjay Bhimrao Mahadik of the BJP demanded an increase in the minimum support price for sugar.

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