147 stubble-burning incidents reported on Monday, 25 FIRs lodged

The state recorded 147 incidents of stubble burning on Monday, the highest single-day count so far. Of the 147 incidents, 32 were reported from Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s home district of Sangrur, while 25 were from Tarn Taran.

The pollution control board authorities have filed as many as 25 fresh FIRs and made 20 "red" entries in the revenue records of offenders.

Punjab has witnessed 890 such cases from September 15 till October 27.

Tarn Taran (249), Amritsar (169), Ferozepur (87) and Sangrur (79) districts contributed the bulk of cases, according to the data of the Punjab Pollution Control Board, as many farmers continue to disregard the state government's appeal to stop burning crop residue.

Pollution control agencies start monitoring stubble burning from September 15 and compile the data till November 30. Of the 890 incidents recorded so far, 682 — 76 per cent — have been reported in the past 10 days.

Officials said the period between October 15 and November 15 would be the “most crucial” as the bulk of paddy harvesting takes place during this time. Based on the data of the past three years, Punjab has identified 663 hotspot villages across eight districts — Sangrur, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Moga, Barnala, Mansa, Tarn Taran and Faridkot.

These eight districts together accounted for 6,815 of the 10,909 farm fires reported in 2024, nearly two-thirds of the state’s total.

To enforce compliance, the state government has constituted a “Parali Protection Force” comprising about 8,000 personnel, including 5,000 nodal officers, 1,500 cluster coordinators and 1,200 field officers, across 11,624 villages.

Pak to blame for pollution in the region: Experts

The findings of experts have shown that farm fires in Punjab have declined by 38 per cent whereas border areas of Pakistan have reported 6,094 incidents from September 15 to October 27.

The data was provided by a research team led by Prof Suman Mor, Department of Environment Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Prof Ravindra Khaiwal, Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh.

Prof Khaiwal said the data had been collected from the NASA satellite which monitors farm fires. The thermal images collected by the satellite show a heavy concentration of burning in the area around the border in Pakistan.