On Saturday, the state reported 2,011 such incidents but Sunday saw the highest number this season
Even as a falling trend has been recorded in incidents of stubble burning this year compared to last two, 3,162 incidents of the field fires were recorded by Punjab's remote sensing centre on Sunday, reflecting a spike over the last few days.
On Saturday, the state reported 2,011 such incidents but Sunday saw the highest number this season.
The spike does not bode well for the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) for two reasons. First, stubble burning is not going to abate in the days to come as officials from Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) described this as a period of last rush to dispose of paddy straw before the wheat sowing begins.
Secondly, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said on Friday that starting November 1, wind directions are likely to be northwesterly, bringing in more smoke from the fields of Punjab.
The CPCB said stubble burning is contributing 20-30% to Delhi's air pollution.
Among the districts, Firozpur recorded over 600 incidents while Amritsar, Patiala and Sangrur recorded between 300-400.
"We have seen a trend that starting from the last few days of October up to November 5, incidents of stubble burning rise. Harvesting of paddy begins a little later in Malwa region and they have to clear fields in a limited period of time," said Krunesh Garg, member secretary, PPCB.
On Sunday, Delhi's air quality, 366, was the worst this season and continued to be in the 'very poor' category. Several air quality monitoring stations saw 'severe' category of pollution as levels of PM2.5 and PM10 were in the range of 400-500 microgram per cubic metre of the air. This is 5-8 times above the safe limit.
The government's Bhuvan remote sensing data application had shown 4,025 incidents of stubble burning in Punjab on Sunday. However, officials from the PPCB said that the state's own remote sensing centre parses this data for duplicate counts and other instances of fire or thermal anomalies and arrives at a final figure.
Stubble burning incidents in Punjab have seen an incremental rise since the third week of October. On October 21, only 584 incidents were recorded, but from then on, the incidents have been rising.
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