Muktsar tops Punjab in farm fires as state reports 312 new incidents

Despite repeated warnings from the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), stubble burning continued unabated in Punjab, with Muktsar district reporting the highest number of 45 farm fires on Tuesday.

Moga (37), Tarn Taran (33), and Mansa (32) also recorded a surge in incidents.

A recent CAQM report, discussed during a high-level review meeting with state officials in Chandigarh, noted a sharp upward trend in Muktsar and Fazilka, prompting the Commission to seek urgent intervention from the state government.

Punjab reported 312 fresh stubble-burning cases, taking the seasonal total to 4,507, of which nearly 47 per cent (2,565) occurred in the past 11 days.

Officials admitted that despite the triple-action plan—imposing environmental compensation, lodging FIRs, and making red entries in land records—many farmers continued to burn residue late in the evening to evade satellite detection.

Before the Supreme Court, senior advocate Aprajita Singh, assisting the Bench as amicus curiae, urged the court to seek responses from Punjab and Haryana, noting that unchecked stubble burning was worsening air quality in Delhi-NCR, which registered an AQI of 425 on Tuesday morning.

NASA aerosol scientist Hiren Jethva described November 11 as “the smokiest day so far,” sharing satellite images of dense haze over the Indo-Gangetic plains.

“While some haze drifts from across the border, stubble burning in Indian Punjab remains the main culprit,” he posted on X.

With no rain to disperse pollutants, air quality further deteriorated in major Punjab cities—Ludhiana (169), Jalandhar (172), Amritsar (145), and Patiala (116)—all recording AQI levels in the ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ category.