Farm Fires In 2021 Was The Highest, Could Increase Further As Stubble Burning Is Decriminalised
A total of 86,606 farm fires were observed in Punjab and Haryana between September and November during the stubble burning season by the Nasa's VIIRS 375m satellite.
This is reportedly a 7.3% increase over the same period last year and the highest number of farm fires in five years.
Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), which looked at stubble burning data from the states said that there was a sharp increase in burning in Haryana as compared with the 2020 season. The number of fire counts in Punjab this year was 76,680, as opposed to 75,193 last year, and 9,926 in Haryana, up from 5,506 in 2020.
Haryana districts highest
In Haryana, Fatehabad reported the maximum fire count of around 2,000, followed by Kaithal, Jind and Karnal districts. Sangrur topped in Punjab with a maximum of 8,900 farm fires this season, followed by Bhatinda and Moga districts.
The increase in stubble burning cases in 2021 is bad news for the residents of Delhi as farm fires are a major contributor to the national capital's air pollution crisis.
System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the forecasting body under the Union ministry of earth sciences, shows that the share of stubble burning to Delhi's PM2.5 in the second week of November (November 9-13) was 30%.
Stubble burning decriminalised
Last week, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar had said the Central government has agreed to the farmers' demand of decriminalising stubble burning.
As a measure to stop stubble burning, the Supreme Court had suggested the secretaries in the government should visit fields and engage with farmers and also with the scientists, to find a permanent solution to combat the menace of air pollution.
The SC had also said that it was wrong to blame the farmers alone for the poor air quality in Delhi.
Farmers have long said that they are forced to burn the crop residue in the fields to clear them for the next crop as there are no other alternatives.
They say that the stubble processing machines made available by the government are very few in number and that many can't afford them.
Several attempts including creating awareness and penalties to discourage farmers from burning the crop residue have so far failed to end the practice.
In 2019, Punjab had announced an assistance of Rs 2,500 per acre to small-scale cultivators to stop them from burning stubble but the scheme failed due to the lack of funds.
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