Continuing its attack on the Centre, the Aam Aadmi Party on Friday said the Union government is accusing Punjab of spreading pollution by burning stubble in order to hide its failures.

Addressing a joint Press conference, Punjab Cabinet ministers Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer alleged the Centre government is highlighting the issue of stubble burning to divert people’s attention from the unfortunate incident that took place in Gujarat.

Both the ministers said the Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is spreading misleading propaganda against Punjab on this issue of stubble burning.

The ministers claimed as per Central Pollution Control Board, Punjab’s Air Quality Index is better than Haryana. They said according to the data till date, many cities of Haryana are in the first 10 cities in the list of the most polluted cities in India, including Hisar, Faridabad, Sirsa, Rohtak, Sonepat and Bhiwani etc., while from Punjab no city is in the first 10 of this list.

“This clearly shows that stubble is being set on fire more in Haryana than in Punjab,” Dhaliwal said while accusing the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi of playing politics at the behest of the Centre government on the issue of stubble burning who is writing letters to the Chief Minister of Punjab on this matter without any authority.

Dhaliwal and Hayer said stubble burning and crop residue management is a joint issue of many states of North India, but the Centre government is playing politics instead of supporting Punjab in this matter.

They said Punjab and Delhi governments prepared a proposal to give assistance of Rs 2500 per acre to the farmers for crop residue management and stubble management.But the Central government rejected this proposal, the ministers said.

Dhaliwal said cases of stubble burning have fallen down enormously. Hayer said in the satellite system, there are some flaws in showing the cases of stubble while the actual reality is something else. In Punjab, there has been a decrease in cases of stubble burning this year, but the satellite system is showing the same where actually the only waste was burnt after stubble bailing which did not cause any significant pollution.

He said as there is only a 10-day gap between paddy harvesting and wheat sowing in Punjab, use of D-composer solution for stubble management in the field is not effective in all places.