16 active fire locations 'not traced' in Karnal
Parveen Arora
Karnal, November 9
Amid reports that the data provided by the government on farm fires is incorrect as the number of stubble burning cases is much higher than being cited by the government, the Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department admits that the data of active fire locations based on Haryana Space Applications Centre, (HARSAC), a nodal agency of the government to trace farm fires may not be conclusive.
It is evident from the claim of the Agriculture Department that as many as 16 active fire locations have not been traced in Karnal district and 54 in Kaithal district. Joint teams of various departments have not found any traces of fire at these locations. Even at a couple of locations paddy had not been harvested.
The department blamed the ‘inaccurate’ information shared by HARSAC, while the latter denied any error and claimed that the monitoring and field verification by the department was not proper.
Karnal district has recorded 103 cases, while Kaithal has reported 234 cases till November 9 in the current season.
“After getting a report from HARSAC about the active fire locations with longitude and latitude details, we send joint teams constituted by the DC comprising different departments, but in 16 cases we did not find any traces,” said Wazir Singh, Deputy Director Agriculture (DDA), Karnal. Four cases of neighbouring district have been reported in Karnal district, he added.
Mahabir Singh, DDA, Kaithal said there could be a possibility of error in satellite data as it provided data using satellite imaging and thermo sensors to observe fire locations. “Since Kaithal is situated in a border area and some time, it locates active fire locations of Punjab as those in this district. Movement of smog may also cause error in detecting the active fire locations,” said the DDA, Kaithal.
On the other hand, Sultan Singh, Director, HARSAC, denied any kind of error in the data of satellite imagery and said there was no manual interference in the satellite data. He said the Agriculture Department should verify the locations properly.
