Stubble burning is back in Punjab, Haryana to haunt national capital

The start of the Kharif harvesting season has brought a familiar problem for Punjab and Haryana – stubble burning, which pollutes the air, leading to a public health nightmare for Delhi-NCR every year.
On Monday, the Supreme Court said it wanted answers from the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas over stubble burning. It is expected to take up the issue on Friday. Last year, the top court said that stubble burning must be controlled while highlighting the need for judicial monitoring to ensure that the issue does not recur.
Official data shows that 81 incidents of stubble burning have been reported in Punjab alone this Kharif season.
Data captured by NASA’s VIIRS satellite sensor indicates that crop residue burning events are likely to be concentrated near Amritsar in Punjab, and Kurukshetra and Karnal in Haryana.

The data is collected by NASA’s VIIRS satellite sensor, which picks up unusual thermal signatures on the ground. That means the fire points represented in this map include all types of fires and not just stubble burning.

Stubble burning seems to have picked up pace in the last seven days, as suggested by the VIIRS data. In Punjab, the Kharif harvest season officially starts on September 15 and runs through November 30. In the initial five days, Punjab reported just 18 incidents, according to Punjab Pollution Control Board Chairman Adarsh Pal Vig. That shows 63 incidents were detected between September 20 and September 24.
Incidents of crop residue burning have been declining in Punjab since 2021, data shows. The state reported over 71,000 “fire incidents” in 2021, 49,900 in 2022, and over 36,600 incidents in 2023 during the designated Kharif harvest season, official figures show.
Meanwhile, air quality turned “poor” in many areas of Delhi-NCR with the air quality index ranging between 210 and 263 on Monday.
Punjab and Haryana, the two largest hotspots of stubble burning, committed to eliminate stubble burning this year, the Central government said on Monday after a high-level meeting on winter pollution in the national capital.
Farmers resort to burning crop residue as the cheapest and fastest medium of disposal, particularly in Punjab, Haryana, and some parts of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.
To support them in disposing of residue in an environmentally friendly manner, the Centre runs a scheme to purchase crop residue management (CRM) machines in Punjab and Haryana.
More than 1.50 lakh CRM machines will be available in Punjab, supported by 24,736 Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs), while Haryana has 90,945 CRM machines supported by 6,794 CHCs this season, as per the government.