70 farm fires on Dasehra in Haryana

Nitish Sharma

Ambala, October 24

Despite various measures being adopted by the Haryana Government to curb stubble burning, there appears to be no end to the menace as 99 cases were reported in the state over the past two days alone, taking the tally this season to 813.

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Of the 99 cases, 70 were reported on October 24 alone. The situation, however, is better compared to last year when 250 cases were reported on October 24, which took the tally till then to 1,360.

According to data gathered by the Haryana Space Applications Centre, Fatehabad district has reported the maximum 123 cases so far, followed by Kaithal (107), Ambala (106), Jind (102), Kurukshetra (91), Karnal (53), Yamunanagar (51), Sonepat (47), Hisar (47), Palwal (42), Panipat (17), Sirsa (11), Rohtak (seven), Jhajjar (four), Bhiwani (two), Faridabad (two) and Panchkula (one).

Deputy Director of Agriculture (Ambala) Jasvinder Saini said, “Over 80 per cent of harvesting has been completed in the district and we are expecting the cases to witness a downtrend from here. The field staff has been continuously making efforts to motivate the farmers. The department officials from blocks where harvesting is in last leg are being mobilised to Ambala-1 block where the harvesting is pending. A penalty of Rs 1.70 lakh has been imposed on farmers and two FIRs have also been registered up to October 23.”

Meanwhile, stubble burning, climatic conditions and vehicular pollution, besides other factors, have affected air quality too. Of the 18 cities with poor air quality in the country on Tuesday, as per the data of the Central Pollution Control Board, four were in Haryana—Kaithal (235 AQI), Karnal (226), Bahadurgarh (225) and Fatehabad (207). The AQI in the range of 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 severe.

Haryana State Pollution Control Board Chairman P Raghavendra Rao said, “The farmers are being requested through the Deputy Commissioners to avoid stubble burning. They are being motivated to take benefits of the scheme and the incentives being offered by the government. Stubble burning is not good for agricultural fields as well as the environment.”