Punjab burnt paddy residue on nearly 15 lakh hectares, 20% in just 5 days

Out of 23 districts in Punjab, 12 districts have shown an increase in the burnt area compared to last year.

Meanwhile, harvesting has been completed in the entire state. According to the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre (PRSC), Ludhiana, this year the total area under rice cultivation, including paddy and basmati, is around 30.29 lakh hectares (LH). Punjab Agriculture department’s field reports say that nearly 4.5 LH is under basmati rice, while the remaining around 26 LH is under paddy.

Farmers mostly burn paddy areas as basmati stubble is used for making fodder for the cattle. Out of nearly 26 LH of paddy area, the state has already burnt stubble in 14.88 LH (57% of the paddy area and 48% of the total rice area in the state) till now.

Till November 21 Punjab had recorded 49,526 farm fire incidents, including 243 on Monday, against 70,879 field fire cases during the corresponding period last year.

Sangrur tops the chart in farm fires where the crop residue was burnt on 1.54 LHout of 2.12 LH area which comes to 72.7% of the total rice area of the district. This is followed by Ferozepur and Barnala where 65% and 63% area was burnt, respectively. In Ferozepur 1.09 LH was burnt out of 1.64LH, while in Barnala over 69,000 hectares was burnt out of nearly 1.10 LH.

Faridkot and Fateh Garh Sahib burnt 62.5% (70,420 hectares out of 1.13 LH) and 61% of areas (53,170 hectares out of 87,170 hectares), respectively.Bathinda burnt 58% (1.01 LH out of 1.73 LH), Mansa burnt 57.8% (70,000 hectares out of 1.21 LH), Muktsar and Moga burnt 56% (93,760 hectares out of 1.67 LH) and 54% (90,340 hectares out of 1.67 LH) area, respectively.

Among others, Patiala burnt 49.7% area, Ludhiana (46.55%), Malerkotla (46%), Tarn Taran (44%), Amritsar (43%), Kapurthala (41%), Fazilka (41%), Jalandhar (38%), Gurdaspur (31.9%), Mohali (24.8%), Nawanshahr (21.6%), Hoshiarpur (8.6%), Rup Nagar (18.5%), while Pathankot burnt 9.6% area.

According to Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) records, till November 20 only Rs 1.67 crore environmental compensation was slapped against 6,511 farm fire incidents out of which only Rs 12,500 could be recovered from the farmers. In 4,537 field fire cases, red entries were made against the land records of the farmers.

It seems that the entire machinery for stubble management has gone to waste as Punjab is still witnessing field fire incidents, ironically, with the state having sufficient number of machines to manage stubble burning, a senior officer in the Punjab Agriculture department said.

“It’s the product of a lack of will that both farmers and the government are unable to keep a check on this menace,” an expert from Punjab Agricultural University (Ludhiana) said, adding that it’s a mindset problem, not a machinery issue.

“There are several examples of farmers in the state who have been managing paddy stubble for over a decade, especially when no machines were distributed under crop residue management scheme and they have been managing well with the available implements with them,” he said.