Spotted by satellite, 672 fire locations in Karnal ‘missing’

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, November 21

A total of 672 active fire locations have not been found by teams of the agriculture and revenue departments. They have not found any trace of fire at these locations. The Haryana Space Applications Centre (HARSAC) had given information about these locations in the district this paddy season.

As per information from the Agriculture Department, HARSAC had reported 1,116 active fire locations in the district. Teams of the agriculture and revenue departments found only 444 locations where stubble had been burnt.

“After getting reports from HARSAC on a daily basis, teams were sent to these locations, but we could not find 672 locations,” said Aditya Dabas, Deputy Director, Agriculture. He said they got 437 FIRs registered against farmers for burning stubble.

A HARSAC expert denied any error in reporting active fire locations. The expert said on the condition of anonymity there was no chance of error as HARSAC was connected to NASA and accuracy of reporting was 100 per cent. “We send information with longitude and latitude of active fire location to the district concerned. There may be an error by the teams which go to the field as they do not read the map properly,” said the expert.

Apart from locations sent by HARSAC, the department had traced 13 non-active fire locations. In all, 1,259 cases of fire had been reported in the district last year, while 24 FIRs had been registered and Rs6.5 lakh imposed as fine on farmers.