Punjab reports 2,060 farm fires; 'severe', 'very poor' AQI in parts of Haryana

Punjab on Monday reported over 2000 farm fires even as many parts of Haryana saw air quality indices in the severe and very poor categories while it was poor in areas of the border stateAs farmers continued to set crop residue ablaze 2060 fresh stubbleburning incidents were recorded in Punjab taking the total number of such cases to 19463 till Monday according to Ludhianabased Punjab Remote Sensing Centre dataStubbleburning incidents reported from November 1 till November 6 constitute 61 per cent of the total such cases in the current season as per the dataThe total stubbleburning incidents of 19463 registered from September 15 till November 6 was 35 per cent less than 29999 such cases in the corresponding period last year the data statedThe state had reported 32734 farm fires during the same period in 2021Out of 2060 stubble burning incidents reported on Monday Sangrur continued to top with 509 such cases followed by 210 in Bathinda 195 in Mansa 189 in Barnala 122 in Faridkot and 110 in MogaOn the same day in 2021 and 2022 the state had seen 3942 and 599 active fires respectivelyOut of a total of 19463 farm fires reported this year till now Sangrur topped the list with 3207 stubbleburning cases followed by 1976 in Ferozepur 1809 in Tarn Taran 1451 in Mansa 1439 in Amritsar 1350 in Patiala and 1086 in BathindaMeanwhile Haryanas Fatehabad recorded an air quality index AQI of 425 followed by Faridabad at 412 Sonipat at 412 Jind 385 Hisar 380 Gurugram 376 Kaithal 370 Narnaul 340 Bhiwani 334 Rohtak 326 and Sirsa 308In Punjab Amritsar reported an AQI at 329 followed by Bathinda at 297 Ludhiana 283 Mandi Gobindgarh 266 Jalandhar 231 Khanna 228 and Patiala 220Union Territory Chandigarh the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana saw an AQI of 149An AQI between zero and 50 is considered good 51 and 100 satisfactory 101 and 200 moderate 201 and 300 poor 301 and 400 very poor and 401 and 500 severePaddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is considered one of the major reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in Delhi in October and NovemberAs the window for wheat a key Rabi crop is very short after paddy harvest some farmers set their fields on fire to quickly clear off the crop residue for sowing of the next cropWith about 31 lakh hectares of paddy area Punjab produces around 180200 lakh tonne of paddy straw every year of which 120 lakh tonne was being managed through insitu mixing crop residue in fields and around 30 lakh tonne exsitu using stubble as fuel management methodsThe state recorded 49922 fire events in 2022 71304 in 2021 76590 in 2020 55210 in 2019 and 50590 in 2018This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever