According to official data, incidents of farm fires have reduced this year
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana are burning stubble at night to evade detection by satellite and local officials working overtime to contain farm fires that have poisoned the air in Delhi NCR, it is learnt.
According to official data, incidents of farm fires have reduced this year. Between September 15 and November 7 this year, nearly 21,000 farm fires have been reported in Punjab. This is a drop of about 30 per cent when compared to the same period last year.
The numbers, however, do not add up when seen against the number of paddy farmers. For example, over 56,000 farmers harvested paddy in Punjab's Ludhiana but less than a 1,000 farm fires were reported. This indicates that many farm fires incidents are going undetected.
This could be happening because the daily farm fires count has to be updated by 8 pm. The farmers, aware of this loophole, are setting fire to the fields after 8 pm.
In Haryana, the Haryana Space Applications Centre is using satellite imaging to detect farm fires. This imaging, however, is not conducted round the clock. Dr Sultan Singh, HARSAC director, has told The Tribune that the satellite imaging was carried out at 12-hour intervals.
Some fires, therefore, may slip through the radar.
According to reports, a section of farmers in Haryana believes that burning crop residue after sunset may help them evade detection by satellite. These farmers argue that satellite imaging uses temperature for detection of farm fires incidents, so the drop in temperature at night may lead to the satellite failing to identify farm fires.
Dr Singh, however, dismissed this. "The satellites detect farm fires on the basis of variation in temperature, which can take place at any time," he told The Tribune.
Jaswant Singh, director for agriculture and farmers' welfare in Punjab, too, said it is a baseless rumour that satellite imagery does not detect farm fire incidents at night.
Undetected farm fires lead to mismatch in data. This is critical as government authorities are fine-tuning their strategy based on the data.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which rules both Punjab and Delhi, has said there has been a huge drop in the incidents of farm fires in Punjab and blamed vehicle emissions in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Haryana for Delhi's bad air days.
The BJP has hit back, accusing Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of turning the national capital into a "city of smoke".
With the air quality index in Delhi remaining in the 'severe' category for the past several days, the Supreme Court has asked the governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to urgently discuss with the Centre how to stop farm fires.
The court has said it cannot allow this to become a political battle, stressing that the choking air quality is responsible for the "murder of people's health".