Farm fires rise to 50,967 in Punjab, cross last year's figure

PATIALA: Much to the dismay of Punjab officials hoping to stop stubble burning in the state, the total number of such cases rose by 1,289 on Tuesday.


The total tally for the paddy harvesting season increased to 50,967, which is higher than the last year's figure of 50,576 reported on November 19, 2018.

The maximum number of cases were reported from Sangrur, where a total of 6,632 cases have been caught by satellite, 5,700 from Bathinda, 4,803 from Ferozepur, 3,973 from Patiala, 3,720 from Mansa with 3,200 from Muktsar.

On Tuesday, maximum number of cases were reported from Muktsar, where 380 incidents were recorded, followed by Fazilka with 357 and Ferozepur with 214 cases.

The increase comes despite the state government announcing compensation of Rs 100 per quintal to farmers who are not setting the stubble on fire.

One of the senior officials in the Punjab government expressed dismay and said it appeared that not all efforts to bring down the number of farm fires in the state have succeeded.

Going by the official statement, the Punjab government has till date spent Rs 500 crore to provide subsidies on stubble management machines, besides initiating legal action against those violating the ban on burning crop residue as ordered by the National Green Tribunal.

A senior official said the entire issue would be discussed at the highest level and they would go into the details as to what else could be done to persuade farmers to give up this practice.

With the rise in the number of crop residue fires, the ambient air quality in the state remained in moderate to poor categories.

The air quality monitoring station in Amritsar showed a reading of 281 ugm/m3.

At Bathinda, the AQI was recorded at 147 ugm/m3, at Jalandhar it was 188 ugm/m3, at Khanna it was 170 ugm/m3, in Ludhiana 196 ugm/m3, at Mandi Gobindgarh 217 ugm/m3, in Patiala it was 138 ugm/m3 and in Rupnagar 174 ugm/m3.