But for him, the only alternative to burning crop residues is to join the queue to hire machines to clear his field, which would cost him about $100 for his four-acre farm.
More than 85% of Indian farmers are categorised as small, meaning that, like Sharma, they own about four acres or fewer.
Stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana has typically accounted for 30% to 40% of Delhi's October-November pollution, according to government air-quality monitoring agency SAFAR.
POLITICAL WILL LACKINGAjay Singh Rana, a Haryana farm official, said the number of farms burning stubble in Karnal had dropped to 96 so far this year from 270 last year.
($1 = 83.1750 Indian rupees)Reporting by Manoj Kumar, additional reporting by Anushree Fadnavis; editing by Barbara LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Persons:
Anushree, Aashish Sharma, Sharma, SAFAR, Dharamvir Singh, Ajay Singh Rana, Sharma's, Mukhi Ram Sharma, Bajinder Pal Punia, Manoj Kumar, Barbara Lewis
Organizations:
REUTERS, Central Pollution Control, Reuters, Thomson
Locations:
Karnal district, Haryana, India, New Delhi, Sharma's, Karnal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Samalkha