Farm fires down to 50% as season nears end

Even as Delhi blames Punjab for air pollution, at the end of the farm fire season, only 5,085 stubble-burning cases have been reported compared to 10,443 last year.

Reasons and efforts in detail that led to this decline show that Punjab continued to make significant strides in the in-situ and ex-situ management of paddy straw in 2025, building upon the initiatives undertaken in 2024 and lessons learnt in previous years.

A senior Punjab Pollution Control Board official stated that the government ensured the optimum usage of 1,48,000 crop residue management (CRM) machines that were distributed from 2018-19 till date and large-scale custom hiring centres have been provided for small and marginal farmers.

“In the annual action plan, a target of 1,500 custom hiring centres (CHCs) were fixed for the year 2025-26 in comparison to the target of only 500 CHCs in 2024. Also, 22 paddy supply chain centres were established in 2025 in the state to strengthen the supply chain of paddy,” he added.

Further, the mapping of the CRM machines, real-time booking by farmers, daily reporting of machine utilisation by officials and single platform for machine rental ensured that the in-situ management in the state of paddy straw had steadily increased from 6.45 million tonnes in 2020-21 to an estimated 11.4 million tonnes in 2025.

Another government functionary privy to the developments stated that out of the total area under paddy this year, around 80 per cent was under short to medium duration varieties of paddy, which is a significant jump from past years. An incentive of Rs 1500 per acre for the sowing of paddy through the direct seeding method ensured 2.93 lakh acres were sown using the DSR method,” he said.

“Also, ex-situ management (including industrial boilers, pelletisation, CBG plants, biomass power) has increased from 0.92 million tonnes in 2020-21 to an estimated 7.06 million tonnes in 2025. Industrial boilers straw consumption grew significantly from 8.8 lakh tonnes in 2022 to a projected 41 lakh tonnes in 2025. Pelletisation plants expanded from 18 in 2024 to 37 operational plants in 2025, with 34 more under setup, targeting 17 lakh tonnes annual consumption. It is noteworthy that there was no palletisation plant in the state in 2020,” claimed another PPCB official.