Follow ISRO protocol to record farm fires, central commission tells Punjab
CHANDIGARH : The commission for air quality management in the National Capital Region (NCR) and adjoining areas has directed the Punjab government to follow the protocol laid by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to record stubble burning cases in the state.
The commission has asked the government to start counting the fire incidents from September 15 coinciding with the start of paddy harvesting and continue it till November 30 when the harvesting and procurement comes to an end in Punjab.
It also asked the state to involve the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) and measure aerosols, amount of stubble burnt and the discharge of harmful gases in the air besides getting the data analysed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), known as the Pusa Institute.
As per the protocol, it was also decided to measure air direction and trend of smog movement in the air. For the last 4-5 years, the Punjab government has been roping in the state’s remote sensing centre, Ludhiana, but questions were raised on the exact number of farm fire cases. The state agriculture
department and the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) have been claiming that stubble burning in Punjab is not the source of smog in Delhi and adjoining areas during the harvesting period as vehicles and construction activities in the NCR are also a major factor behind poor air quality.
In December last year, the commission had taken up the matter with the ISRO which agreed to monitor the crop residue burning in the paddy growing areas of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab with the use of satellites. The Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun, Space Application Centre, Ahmadabad, the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian meteorological department were
also roped in and it came to the fore construction, vehicular movement and thermal plants also contributed to pollution.
There was the need to ascertain the exact scale of pollution caused by stubble burning, it was stressed.
In Punjab, paddy is grown over 30 lakh hectares with 220 lakh tonnes stubble produced in a single season. Due to high silica content, paddy straw is not used as a dry fodder, like wheat straw. On July 13, the commission had held a meeting with representatives of the IARI, Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) besides government officials from Punjab, Haryana and UP and stressed on the need for ex-situ management of paddy stubble.