NEW DELHI: Between September 1 and November 10, Punjab recorded more farm fires this year compared with the same period in the last three years. Until November 10, Punjab recorded 65,859 fires in 2020, while the number of fires was just 39,215 until the same date in 2019. In 2018, the fire count till this stage was 44,346.
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The levels are inching closer to that of 2016 when Punjab recorded 77,313 fires during the period.
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This is a serious matter and betrays Punjab’s lack of effort in controlling stubble burning. The state government must eschew both populism and shortsightedness and look at the bigger picture, failing which higher authorities must intervene to make it walk the line.
Daily satellite data, however, reveals that a gradual decline in fire counts has begun and their impact is likely to reduce considerably in the next two weeks.
Pawan Gupta, senior scientist at Universities Space Research Association, NASA, who has analysed VIIRS satellite data since 2012, says Punjab has fared the worst in September this year, while barring October 2016, this October has also been the worst in terms of the fire counts.
A peak in farm fires was observed in 2016. While there has been a gradual improvement year-on-year, the trend has been broken in 2020 with early farm fires being recorded in Punjab.
“Between September 1 and November 10, close to 66,000 farm fires were recorded in Punjab in 2020 compared with around 40,000 in the last Kharif season. Sangrur continues to be the high burn district followed by Bathinda, Moga, Patiala, Tarn Taran and Mansa,” said LS Kurinji, research analyst at Council on Energy, Environment and Water.
She, however, adds that based on trends over the last few years, a reduction in farm fires over the next few days is likely.
System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting Research (SAFAR), a body under the ministry of earth sciences, has been observing a drop in daily fire counts since November 6 when over 4,000 farm fires were recorded in Punjab, Haryana and UP. On Tuesday, 2,422 farm fires were recorded in the region — primarily coming from Punjab.
While the farm fire share is still high, the contribution of it to Delhi’s air was just 3 per cent on Wednesday, SAFAR stated.
“Easterly winds are forecast for Wednesday and the first half of Thursday, which is likely to improve AQI further towards the middle-end of the very poor category, however, this will be short-lived,” said SAFAR.