Punjab: Majha sees spurt in fire incidents, Doaba, Malwa next in line

Patiala: As the harvesting of the paddy has picked up pace in Majha region, the western border districts of Punjab are witnessing a spurt in the number of fire incidents over the last 15 days.

Last year, it was the Malwa region comprising Ludhiana, Patiala, Sangrur, Bathinda, Mansa, Faridkot, Muktsar, Ferozepur, Fazilka and Moga districts that had witnessed the maximum number of cases.

In 2018, 6,063 cases were recorded at Sangrur while 4,520 cases were observed in Ferozepur. It was followed by Bathinda with 4,498 cases. Muktsar was next in with 4,070 cases and Patiala had 3,544 cases of farm fires. A total of 3,097 cases were reported from Mansa and 2,682 in Moga. These districts were followed by Faridkot where the monitoring agency recorded 2,247 cases of stubble burning. As many as 2,143 cases were reported from Barnala. In Puadh region, 770 cases were reported from Fatehgarh Sahib and Ropar had just 74 cases.

During last season, 43,353 cases of farm fires had been identified by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) out of which environmental compensation of Rs 1.05 crore was imposed in 3,683 cases. The total recovery of about Rs 15.75 lakh had been realised.

This year, the maximum number of farm fires till date have been observed in the Majha region comprising Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts. In Amritsar district, 295 cases have been reported till Friday, while, 126 cases have been reported from Tarn Taran.

Last year, 2,234 cases had been reported from Amritsar and 997 from Taran Taran. According to Charanjit Singh, senior scientific officer of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB), paddy gets harvested early in Majha so the incidents of stubble burning were higher in that region.

He said the number of cases reported region-wise also depended on the total area under paddy cultivation in these areas.

Kahan Singh Pannu, state nodal officer to curtail stubble burning, said the trend of setting crop residue on fire was observed across Punjab, barring areas where paddy was not cultivated. He said this year they were expecting that number of fire incidents would remain low when compared with previous years, as a large number of farmers were now in possession of in-situ stubble management machinery, the results of which are likely to be observed in the next two months.

Meanwhile, on Friday 77 fire incidents were recorded by the Punjab State Remote Sensing Centre. Whereas on the same day in 2017 and 2018, the fire incidents were 81 and 28 respectively.

481 cases in Haryana

In Haryana, 481 cases of stubble burning have been reported, 165 in Karnal district alone, since September 25. Other districts with high incidents of stubble burning included Kurukshetra (99), Kaithal (108), Fatehabad (23) and Jind (22).