Circular bio-economy and smog crisis

Dawn published an opinion piece by Khalid Wattoo and Dr Waqar Ahmad urging Punjab to treat crop residue as a commercial input. The authors cite a biomass steam plant in Sheikhupura, inaugurated last month, designed to burn about 72,000 tonnes of biomass a year with emission-control filters. They present such plants as cleaner than open-field burning, which they count among the causes of the smog crisis.

The writers argue that the provincial response of Section 144 orders, arrests and fines treats symptoms rather than causes. Farmers have only a few days between rice harvest and sowing, and scarce, costly labour makes burning the cheapest way to clear fields. They estimate that roughly 4 million tonnes of rice straw burnt each year carries an economic loss above Rs55 billion.

They call for a biomass market linking collection services with power plants, paper mills and industrial users, backed by targeted tax concessions and subsidies. Given the short seasonal window, they prefer targeted subsidies over interest-free loans for service providers and suggest redirecting part of the funds spent on tractors and infrastructure. Dawn ran the piece in its Business and Finance Weekly edition on September 7, 2026.