86 active farm fires detected on Sunday near Amritsar

Manmeet Singh Gill

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Amritsar, October 1

The farmers seem to have taken full advantage of the holiday on Sunday as the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre detected a total of 86 farm fires during the day.

The district has reported a total of 260 farm fire incidents since September 15. Maximum incidents have been reported from areas known as vegetable belts. In these areas, farmers are in a rush to sow vegetable crops. So they burn stubble, which is the fastest and easiest method to clear their fields.

While the government has imposed a blanket ban on burning of crop residue and even announced that penalty would be imposed on erring farmers, the cases of stubble burning are rapidly increasing in the district.

The government is providing subsidy on machines for management of crop residue but that too seems to have failed to check farm fires. A farmer said, “We have hired baler machines to cut stubble but a significant part of the plant still remains in a field. As very less time is available for the third crop in between harvesting of paddy and sowing of wheat, the burning of crop residue is the only viable option to clear fields.”

An Agriculture Department official said, “The next two weeks are crucial as harvesting of paddy would reach its peak and so would the farm fires.”