Farm fires down, but still on higher side
LUDHIANA/BATHINDA : On the day Supreme Court pulled by Punjab government for failing to stop stubble burning in the state, a marginal decline was reported in paddy straw burning with 4,741 active fires recorded by the satellite monitoring centre at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).
Punjab’s chief agriculture officer Dr Baldev Singh said that a team of senior officials from Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) would visit the state, probably by end of this week, to study the impact of in-situ management of paddy.
The officials said on Wednesday as many as 84 farmers were arrested and 174 FIRS were registered in the state as against 196 farmers booked and 374 cases registered on Tuesday.
The farmers also took out marches protesting police action at a number of places in the state. In Bathinda, farmers under the banner of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta – Ugrahan) burnt paddy stubble on over 100 acres of land in Bhucho Khurd village and union leader, Jasvir Singh, said the state government instead of fulfilling farmers’ demand of ₹200 per quintal or free machinery to manage stubble had ordered FIRS and arrest of farmers.
The protesters also demanded withdrawal of cases and revocation of penalties imposed on farmers, stating that they have no other option but to burn stubble in fields due to cost involved in managing it.
With today’s fire incidents, 42,676 farm fires were reported between September 23 and November 6 this post-harvesting season, which according to officials, was more than those witnessed during the corresponding period in the previous two years. In 2018, 30,207 stubble burning incidents were reported and 37,463 in the year before that.
In neighbouring Haryana, 265 farmers of Karnal district were booked for stubble burning as total number of fire incidents in the state crossed over 5,181. The number is still less than the farm fires reported from Haryana in 2018. On Wednesday, Haryana government suspended deputy director (agriculture), Kaithal, Pawan Sharma, for failure to check stubble-burning on the complaint district deputy commissioner Priyanka Soni. AQI of Kaithal on Wednesday was very poor.