Air Pollution Woes: Stubble Burning In Punjab And Haryana Rises By Five Per Cent

The National Capital Region (NCR)'s fight against the unbridled rise in toxic air pollution continues to fall out as loose for another year as crop residue stubble burning in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana registers a rise of five per cent, reports Times of India.

The rise of stubble burning has been claimed by NASA which has performed satellite-based data analysis of the fields.

However, the same has been countered by the officials from the states who have made a counter-claim that the number of fires per unit area of harvested rice has been low compared to the previous year, especially in Punjab.

The officials have claimed that Punjab has witnessed 10.2 lakh hectares of paddy being harvested, which is 18 per cent higher than last year when the paddy had been harvested on 8.6 lakh hectares. Thus, the stubble burning per unit area of the harvest is lower this year than in 2018, as per the officials.

Meanwhile, as per NASA's VIIRS satellite data, between 1-24 October, as many as 8,258 counts of fire were detected across Punjab and Haryana, compared to 7,861 such points last year, indicating a five per cent rise in stubble burning so far.