Stubble burning begins, NCR braces for foul air

Cases detected in Punjab and Haryana; situation may worsen in Oct

NEW DELHI: The season’s first cases of stubble burning — regarded by experts as one of the principal reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in the National Capital Region (NCR) every winter — have been reported from the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana, according to two officials familiar with the developments.

Over the past week, at least 61 cases of stubble burning have been detected in Haryana, and two in Punjab, confirmed members of the state pollution control boards of the two states. They both said that satellite monitoring of burning stubble — a post-monsoon phenomenon in which farmers set fire to their paddy fields in order to get them ready for wheat sowing in November — will start from this week.

“In Haryana, all the 61 cases have been reported from Karnal district (140km from Delhi). We have lodged FIRs (first information report) in 26 cases so far. As much as ₹90,000 has been collected from 35 farmers as fines,” said S Narayanan, member secretary of the Haryana Pollution Control Board.

“These are the first cases of crop-residue burning in Punjab this season. Two cases of stubble burning have been reported so far. While one was reported from Amritsar, the second one was detected in Patiala,” said Karunesh Garg, member secretary of the Punjab Pollution Control Board.

Garg said that a penalty of ₹5,000 has been imposed on the Patiala farmer for burning crop residue, but the Amritsar case is still being verified. In 2015, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had imposed fines ranging between ₹2,500 and ₹15,000 on farmers to prevent them from

burning crop residue, smoke from which was being carried towards Delhi by northwesterly winds.

“With the retreat of monsoon, the northwesterly winds start blowing in. This paves the way for a major chunk of the pollutants to reach Delhi and other cities located in the path of the winds,” said D Saha, a former head of the air quality laboratory at the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

In the winter of 2017, while officials in Haryana detected around 12,657 stubble-burning cases through satellite mapping, in Punjab 43,814 cases

were recorded. Chief ministers of the three states have been squabbling for the last two years over the impact of stubble burning on pollution levels in the Capital. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has insisted that it is one of the biggest reasons why the city becomes a “gas chamber” in the winter.